Folk Art Style: Traditional and Contemporary Painting for Everyday Objects
Decorative folk painting is the art of applying figurative work or stylized decoration to functional everyday objects. Typically, such adornment takes the form of a fruit-and-flowers approach, butFolk Art Styleextends the boundaries well beyond the traditional, offering 18 lovely projects ranging in style from hatboxes and screens inspired by medieval illumination and Elizabethan portraiture to art nouveau and art deco motifs on furniture, Edwardian and lacquerware-style trays, and a lidded wooden box painted à la Georgia O'Keefe. The introductory section provides extensive instructions on various decorative painting methods (stroke work, bold, and blended painting techniques), as well as solid groundwork on using color, preparation and finishing, pattern transfer, and practice exercises. "Folk art," says this talented author, "recognizes that everyone has latent talent," and her book bears stunning witness to her faith in this belief.--Amy Handy