The Eyes Wander Paths
I discovered the naïve art of Olaf Ulbricht through a friend of mine only just the other day: I was charmed by a picture he shared of one of Ulbricht’s village scenes, seen from overhead (above).
Typically, Ulbricht’s paintings depict rural scenes of people interacting with the landscape in daily life or festivities. From the ‘simpler compositions in his earlier work, Ulbricht’s pictures became steadily more colourful and elaborate in detail, and more static. While in his earlier work musicians and houses might float around a church in the autumn breeze, today his pictures tell little stories’. These are stories that are a joy to meander over, like a tourist discovering a new town.
A rich and vivid colour palette is a consistent characteristic of his paintings, which Ulbricht achieves using acrylic paint on wood, and the application of multiple layers of lacquer; the lacquer gives the bright colours a brilliant finish. The irregularity and individuality of the woodgrain are integrated into the painting as much as possible.
For a definition of Naïve style, I can’t go past that from The Gallery of International Naïve Art:
‘Naïve art is characterised by a refreshing innocence and the charming use of bright colours, child-like perspective and idiosyncratic scale. It portrays simple, easily-understandable and often idealised scenes of everyday life. The naïve artist – often self-taught - treats us to a uniquely literal, yet extremely personal and coherent, vision of what the world was, is or should be. It offers us, often in painstaking detail, a timeless and optimistic depiction of an ancient story or Biblical tale, an ordinary occurrence or current event, a special ceremony or daily activity. The naïve painting bustles with colour and excitement, brims with wry humour and candour, bubbles with unbridled empathy and love.’
Ulbricht is also a wood carver; discover more on his website, most of which is in German with some translation into English, portions of which are quoted above.
Tropic April
A tropical Carmen Miranda complete with little frog makes a cheerful April greeting. I wonder if this lady is daydreaming of synchronised swimming or the like? She looks like she should be.
This month’s Frankie calendar page features the painting Julie Blue’s Marvellous New Swim Cap by Janet Hill. Hill is a Canadian artist whose work is displayed in private collections all round the world, as well as featured in editorials and corporate collateral. Her colour palette is warm and rich, her style nostalgic and engaging.
You can see more of her work on her website, or purchase a print in her Etsy shop, including Julie Blue.
Happy April!
A Colourful March
Miju Lee, an artist currently living in Barcelona, works in coloured pencil on paper, acrylic on canvas and also in ceramics. The March page of my Frankie calendar features one of her drawings of an interior that is both colourful, reminiscent of early 20th century art movements, and possibly showing influence of the recent geometric trend in design.
Lee’s style is naïve, and charming with it, full of whimsical detail. The geometric patterning in the rug, as well as the overall colour scheme, puts me strongly in mind of 1920s textile artist Sonia Delaunay’s work, and perhaps even touches of Expressionism in the palette; and even Cubism in the upended picture planes. The later work in acrylic is more stylised, and flatter – it has a look of cut paper. Whatever Lee’s inspirations, these various combinations create a unique and idiosyncratic style.
It is certainly an enjoyable and cheerful picture to gaze at this March. Have a great month!
~
See more of Miju Lee’s work at her website, or on her Facebook page.
How Embarrassing
Oops, pen and watercolour on vintage paper, Helena Turinski 2017I made a boo-boo. You may have noticed I have changed the names of my two blogs on this website, from Sketchbook to Scrapbook, and Journal to Style, to better reflect the content.
Today I realised I had forgotten a whole lot of internal links of references to previous entries would be broken … because in the detailed traffic report there are a whole lot of instances of PAGE NOT FOUND. I am so sorry! I have fixed this embarrassing error in the Scrapbook, but in case I have missed one, please note all you need to do is replace the word ‘sketchbook’ with ‘scrapbook’ in the url and you’ll be in business (and likewise ‘journal’ with ‘style’).
Right. As you were. Keep reading. We’ll pretend this never happened.
Rage!
Rage! Digital drawing on vintage paper, Helena Turinski, 2015 I was looking for something today in my archives and came across this amusing digital sketch that I had forgotten about. I created it about a year and a half ago as an experiment, using a page from a 1931 journal I had bought from an antiquarian shop.
The concept was related to a random poem I was working on at the time, but it didn’t work as part of a collage and I set it aside. Now, the visceral emotion quite amuses me. I certainly wasn’t angry, but rather gleefully exuberant!
The biggest compliment I received when a friend of mine, another artist, saw some of my digital ink drawings and assumed they were created traditionally. I think doing them this way frees me up much more than if I was using real ink – I know I’d be anxiously worrying about wrecking irreplaceable and unique vintage papers. The other concern is that this paper is very thin and delicate, and would not be able to handle much medium at all. In the end, if I can create a realistic effect digitally, I am happy.