Today I‘m gonna show some of stationery items, that I‘m currently decorating using the elements from the folk decorative arts, that come from the northern regions of Russia. This style is not particularly famous, because, well, there are lots of other styles that are more decorative, more „russian“ for tourists and many native russians as well, thus more exploited for souvenirs etc.
All these are sort of drafts, made of paper and light cardboard, with colour pencil and sharpey, where I play around with element arrangements and how they interact with ornaments around. Actual decorating is made on wooden objects, using semi-liquid paint for colour base, and liquid black paint for detailing with thin brush. Now my objective is rather to learn about composition, and how different surfaces can be decorated in this technique/style.
This one is rather minimalistic and graphic, the elements being rather simplified, and organized in ornamental friezes. If you look at it nearly, you‘ll see all the similar elements varying into infinity thanks to many graphical details and alternation.
I appreciate on the one hand certain ridigity, but also endless variation possibilities because of right amount of constructional elements - neither that many, nor few - so that certain coherence within the painting can mostly always be assured. It also has something meditational about drawing the reiterating ornaments. And I'm fascinated every single time, how the elements had been conceived, so that with some experience and time invested in learning them, they are building some sort of harmonious micro-universe.
Of course there has been meanings for all the elements like differents representation of the sun, rain, rivers, tilled fields, harvest symbols, and much more. The different elements were picked to build messages. I‘m not going that deep, my experiments are about compositional studies. Whether it‘ll be used in my stationery projects, or transferred to textile – that remains to be seen.
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