How such decorative features are worked out from beginning to end, is told in the following directions for a few practical problems which are known to be practical, because they have been actually carried through from the design to the completed article. This detailed and complete explanation, with the accompanying illustrations, will suggest many similar problems which every home offers.
BLOCK PRINTING
Problem: Decorating a Table Runner.—This problem is easily separated into four distinct parts—making the design, cutting the block, printing, and finishing. The materials needed are as follows:
| (1) Making the design | (2) Cutting the block |
| Ordinary drawing paper | Gum wood |
| Rice paper | Small penknife |
| Charcoal | Vise |
| Pencil | Sand-paper, fine |
| Japanese or sable brush, medium size | |
| Water-proof India ink | |
| (3) Printing the design | (4) Finishing the runner |
| Printing board | Embroidery silk or mercerized cotton |
| Sheet of glass | |
| Oil paints | |
| Turpentine | |
| Palette knife | |
| Cotton batting | |
| Cheese cloth | |
The peacock design
The Design.—To carry out the problem as illustrated, it is necessary, first of all, to make the design. Geometry, nature, and the imagination are satisfactory sources upon which to draw for the motif. If the inventive faculty is quite undeveloped, one should study for suggestions the figures in Oriental rugs, photographs of early Eastern art, and the fine old tapestries in museum collections. Some good geometrical designs, like that used on the pillow cover illustrated on [page 104], were made by school-girls after drawing many figures found in rugs; and interesting bird patterns, after studying numerous reproductions of Coptic designs. In no case was the block pattern in the least like the designs studied. They served only as ideas to start with and led to the production of truly original work. It is essential to keep a few simple principles in mind in working out the design: (1) Both the dark and light shades in the patterns should be varied in size and form to avoid a monotonous result and should be as beautiful in proportion as possible. (2) There should be a centre of interest, one part of the design dominant—more attractive than any other. (3) The design must be a unit—i. e., the parts must hold together. All feeling of unity is lost if the parts of the design call attention to themselves to the exclusion of the whole.
