Borders – Something to Ponder About

Many people feel that they are not at all artistic. Yet there are many things you can do to create artistic flourishes or decorations, on objects in your world, with a few simple household tools and very little artistic technique. If you can hammer in a nail, you could paint a primitive, and delightful, border design.

A border can provide structure to a loose, flowing design. It will frame the design which pleases the eyes’ sense of order. Not only that but a line or motif border can direct the viewer’s eyes to the rest of the design, whilst still allowing for “breathing room” – negative space around the design itself. This, in particular, applies to primitive or folk art/ traditional art.

Beginners can easily create borders by combining a few basic strokes with dots made with the handle end of a brush dipped in paint, or press a series of dots with a Q-tip cotton bud, or a worn pencil eraser to form a four or five-petaled daisy.

Here are a few ideas:

Elongate the dots made form dipping the handle of a brush into oval shapes to make flower buds.
Place two dots of paint side by side, pulling each to a point, with a fine brush or brush handle, to form a heart. Use the chisel edge of a flat brush to make carefree straight lines. These irregular lines result in a more primitive look, less rigid and more free-flowing than lines carefully painted with a liner brush.

Children can begin to develop an appreciation of border art by dabbling decorative edges on photo frames or the cover of study books. Cover the books with plain paper or card stock and arm the kids with a q tip or paintbrush as a “dotting tool.”

Rule some lines in pencil as a guide and let them create patterns in rows across the paper with Q-tips or brushes. You will be surprised as what they come up with. They are limited only by their imagination. And you can even incorporate apply a bit of mathematics at the same time, teaching division skills.

Something to remember when painting strokes and border designs is to aim for a flowing design. Otherwise, the rhythm of the design will appear disjointed and the eye will not flow smoothly from one section of the design to another.

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Decorate an object with one colour and then add a solid, contrasting colour border design

A solid contrast border colour can be further embellished with geometric shapes, dots, stripes or swirls.

As your confidence and ability grows, build up each row upon row, to form an intricate border designs, based on basic shapes and form such as can be seen in this preliminary sketch below.

20170616_230017 — Source: The Basics of Folk Art by J. Jansen

Rosemaling traditional art — Something to Ponder About

traditional art — Rangoli Border in South India dnikias.wordpress.com

No matter where you travel, in the world, within each region you will find examples of innovative forms of folk art. These are not completed by the skilled artisan, but rather by the common person, often with little training and few tools, simply decorating their homes and surrounds. Historically, an itinerant artist might travel from town to town this way, painting as he went, eeking out a meagre existence through the doors of time.

stordal church Norway — The Rose or Stordal church Norway. c 1789

Rosemaling is often seen in Churches in Norway

Rangoli is a traditional women’s art form common in Hindu households throughout southern India. Designs are drawn directly in white chalk,on the ground, at the house entranceway, by the women of the household, as part of a ritualistic religious practice.

My primary interest is in Norwegian and old Hansa traditional art forms, such as Rosemaling, the Danish Almuemaling, and the Dutch Hindeloopen, styles of painting that ordinary folk used to decorate their homes during the dark cold days of winter when they could not go outside to work.

I find the differnt forms of these old art styles dynamic. They feel alive and have a historic connection to a way of life long past, but still valued.

In many forms of folk art, religion symbolism is rife, and the tulip is a common feature. Once the Tulip meant the Holy trinity, something inherent in many different religions and I guess this is the reason we see it represented in art in the East as well as the West.

The following link displays border designs in South India – Take a look. How often do you see the Tulip form?

some borders –

Something Inspirational to Ponder About