Learning Rosemaling: Norwegian Folk Painting

Me, pick up a brush? I haven't done artwork in over thirty years...

But I have always admired folk painting, and last week I got the opportunity to take a class in Norwegian-style folk painting known as Rosemaling (pronounced rose-mauling). How hard could it be? After our local Daughters of Norway-sponsored Scandia Fest here in Port Townsend, Washington last weekend, Marilyn Hansen, one of the sellers of her own Rosemaling wares, stayed on in Port Townsend to teach a 3-day class. The owner of the home where we took the class got an evening class with her family, as well.

Rosemaling is a style of painting which began in the 1750's when Baroque, Regency and Rococo styles of painting began to be introduced and absorbed into Norwegian folk culture. These designs are usually painted on household objects, such as bowls, plates, breadboards and mangles (wooden ironing tools) and anything else that cries out for decoration, including trunks, furniture, walls and ceilings, and wagons.

Below, Marilyn paints an ornament as she awaits customers at Port Townsend's Scandia Fest. She paints masterfully despite arthritis in her hands. It is not as hard on the hands as some other crafts are, such as knitting or crocheting. Marilyn began painting over 30 years ago, when her young son turned five. She figured he could stay out of her oil paints at that age. She's been painting ever since!

More of Marilyn's creations. The box with dragon handles is a special storage box called a tina. Marilyn buys both pre-crafted wooden ware and found objects to paint on. She cleans up old bowls and plates and breadboards from the Goodwill and recycles them into beautiful works of art.

Marilyn showed us the materials she uses to paint with. She brought brushes for us to purchase, paints for us to use, practice materials and objects to paint. Our total costs were $70 for the class and $23 for materials. These seemed very reasonable prices, indeed.

I discovered that the painting is harder than it looks. The designs incorporate special brush strokes--C-strokes and S-strokes. We practiced painting these first. We taped practice pages over cardboard, and then wax paper over the practice sheets, so we could paint on the wax paper and use and re-use our practice sheets. I turned out to be a klutz with a brush, but I noticed some slight improvement as I went along, and somehow overnight I seemed to get better, too. Marilyn suggested we practice these on paper before painting on wood, to get warmed up, each time we paint. After practicing these strokes with a medium-thickness brush, we moved on to fine strokes with a thin brush. I was absolutely pathetic at these and my strokes got worse, not better, the more I tried them!

Our class, holding up works-in-progress. Marilyn is on the far right. I'm kneeling in front.

After practicing the strokes on the practice sheets, we moved to painting flowers on practice sheets. Marilyn came around to each of us and painted embellishing lines on our flowers, as examples. The second day we learned how to mix paint colors. Then we traced a design onto a piece of painted cardboard and painted it. It was scary to lay down the first strokes. I just knew it was going to look awful. Yes, it did. I erased the center scroll and started over. Fortunately you can either remove or cover up your mistakes as you go along. The oil paint dries slowly. The third day we traced and painted our wooden object, either a wooden plate or breadboard. I chose the breadboard. Our pieces were pre-primed, so we could jump right in and start on the scrolls and flowers.

Here, a student, Arlene Nesbitt, shows some of her previous painting projects. What beautiful work! Check out the painted suitcase at her feet. You'd never struggle to identify your luggage again, though we wondered if it would be more attractive to thieves!

This is my finished breadboard. I painted the flowers and scrollwork. Marilyn gallantly finished it for me (and I wasn't the only one, though I was the slowest!), outlining the flowers with light-colored lines and embellishing the design with curliques, teardrops, leaves and buds...giving me examples for my future works.

Though it may be a while before I get up my courage to try again....