Senior Thesis Project: Scandinavian Folklore

For my senior thesis project at the School of Visual Arts I created a series of pieces based on Scandinavian Folklore.

This body of work draws on stories compiled by William A. Craigie in Scandinavian folk-lore: illustrations of the traditional beliefs of the northern peoples (1896) and Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf in Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend (1988). It encompasses tales from Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and more cultures across Scandinavia.

In particular I was compelled by stories about the sea, the creatures inside it, and how they relate to Scandinavian culture.This includes stories about sea serpents, mermaids, and my personal favorite– The Origin of the Seal.

All works in this series are hand-carved reliefs on 1″ thick basswood panels.

Process: The Sea Serpent

All of my pieces start in a developmental sketch stage. During this part of the process I work closely with the folklore I’m drawing from to identify symbols, motifs, or other ideas I want to include in the final piece. This stage encompasses designing the characters in the piece, as well as thumbnailing for the final composition.

From there I chose a block of wood I think will fit my general composition well, and refine the rough sketch to that particular block of wood. I transfer it onto the block by hand drawing both my grid and semi-finalized sketch. This lets me allow certain natural features of the wood (like knots or visible grain patterns) influence the final stage of the sketch process as much as possible.

The longest step is carving wood. Using a range of knives, gouges, and chisels I carve out the composition from the basswood. Once carved I sand down the surface to prepare it for its finish.

The last stage includes first sealing the piece with varnish and the staining process. I mix my own stains using oil paint and paint thinner. I build up the values up over several days allowing the stain to dry for a full 24 hours before applying the next coat. For this particular project I also added a gilding to certain areas after the darkest stain was applied.