On 26th March, as a part of the Creative Waves – Baltic Sisterhood for Change project, Intercult (project leader) held a workshop with its artistic director – Halina Rosa. Participants of the event visited Intercult’s office at Södermalm in Stockholm to learn more about painting with traditional rose patterns on fabric.
Halina Bartoszek-Rosa is an artist, painter, designer of textile patterns, designer of modern costumes with folk patterns and editor-in-chief of the magazine DESIGNER. In 2020, she was honored with the title Ambassador of Cultural Heritage of the World Polonia and in 2018 for the Sweden Business Women Ambassador for having promoted entrepreneurship and creativity among women.
- At the beginning of the workshop Halina Rosa told the group about her experiences in design, crafts and the technique she has developed during many years to create the beautiful rose patterns she makes today. Halina painted her first roses at a very young age and even today roses are a big part of her creation, design and life.
- After the introduction, the workshop participants attached the fabric to an even surface, Halina uses cardboard, to be able to easily draw the patterns you then paint on the fabric. Here you have free hands to draw your own pattern of twigs, leaves and roses.
- When everyone had sketched their own creative pattern, Halina then showed the participants how to apply paint to the fabric with brushes. First you fill in and paint the whole pattern with a black color. To create a background. When the black color was completely dry, we poured a small amount of the colors from the chosen palette, which was white and blue to mix three different shades of blue on a separate plate. With different shades of light and dark blue you can create depth and give life to the roses you paint.
- It is a challenging technique to paint the rose petals in the same way as Halina taught, but practice gives skill and the paintings from this workshop became fantastic. The tips, that Halina Rosa taught the participants, on how to paint a rose petal was to use a small amount of paint on the brush and only have paint on one side of the brush when painting.
Art and crafts. A joint creation. A moment of joy and sisterhood in a world that is becoming increasingly more difficult to handle. A hope to be able to live on creativity and passion. An inspiration and a small beginning on a long new path.
