Tutorial – Simple Telemark Rosemaling with Bird

Telemark Rosemaling is the most beautiful of Rosemaling  designs or Norwegian style of folk art, of all. It is dynamic and appears to move.

One  motif less commonly seen in Telemark style is Birds. Traditionally birds when used as a motif, were featured looking backward. The meaning stems from religious times in the middle ages when one had to keep a watch out for evil that might sneak up  and infiltrate the frailties of the human spirit!

Some say the bird’s ability to renew its tail feathers every year was seen as a symbol of (religious) renewal and this is why the bird looks back over its shoulder.

Whatever the reason, the addition of a bird motif becomes an asymmetrical focal point  in and is surprisingly easy to achieve with some basic comma strokes and flat brush highlighting and shading.

Chalk or trace the pattern on your proposed project unless you want to work freehand. It can be card, wood, canvas, prepare the palette with three values of each colour, and paint the C and S scrolls.  The first value used is the medium value. Make sure you then place the shading colour (the darker value) on the inside and the highlight or lighter colour on the outside of the scroll.

If you are unsure how to make a c and s strokes there is a youtube video below

The bird, is a series of c scrolls and s strokes with embellishment of comma highlight strokes on the body. The body is one large c stroke, the tail several overlapping comma strokes. The wing is completed with very small c strokes in a highlight or white colour over the top of the blue wing.

Finally, add a few detail strokes on the bird’s body, the eye, a yellow beak and the final liner embellishments and then it is complete.

Birds are something Rosemaling artists may ponder about.