How to amuse yourself and others

by Lina Beard; Adelia B. Beard

Flowers are more difficult to print, yet when the impressions are successful they are very beautiful.

You will find this new idea an interesting method of ornamenting china, while the decorations may be made in much less time than is usually required. The style is suitable for dinner-sets, vases, tiles, plaques, and lamps, and it requires no knowledge of drawing or painting to decorate china in this simple yet effective manner.

Tracing.

Lay a piece of tracing-paper over the design to be copied and trace the outlines very carefully with a hard lead-pencil. Then have your china perfectly clean and dry, and give it a wash all over with a clean cotton cloth wet with clear turpentine. Place a piece of red transfer-paper on the china, and having determined exactly where you wish the design, lay the tracing-paper over the transfer-paper on the space for decoration. Use bits of gummed paper on the corners of the transfer- and tracing-paper to hold them in place, and carefully go over the lines with a lead-pencil, remove the papers, and the design will be clearly outlined on the ware. Now rub a little India-ink on a common individual butter-plate of white china, and using a fine brush, very carefully paint over the red marks with the India-ink, making your lines as distinct and delicate as possible. When this is finished, again wash the china with turpentine to remove any of the red coloring which may be apparent on its surface. Thus prepared the design can be painted, or the china may first be tinted and allowed to dry, when the outlines will be plainly visible through the tinting, and the color can be removed from the design with tar paste. Use the scraper to take the grounding off of minute spaces. For those skilled in drawing it will not be necessary to trace the design, as it can readily be sketched on the china with a lead-pencil after the ware has first received a coat of turpentine, and when tinted the decoration can be drawn on after the grounding has thoroughly dried, and the color may be removed as before.

Mottled Grounds.

Prepare the paint as for tinting, only make it more moist, and dab it lightly over the china by means of a piece of cotton cloth on the end of your finger; this will give the china a mottled appearance which in some cases is preferred to the plain grounding.

Snow Landscape.

We will take for example Fig. 184.

After tracing the design, paint a streak across the sky, just back and a little above the trees, with carnation No. 1 mixed with clove oil and turpentine, then another narrow streak above it of a lighter shade, and another still lighter of the same color, allowing each tint to meet. Next mix light sky-blue with clove oil and turpentine, and paint as deep a tint as it will make across the sky at the top of the plate, graduating it down to the red; use the stipple immediately while the paint is wet to blend the colors and tints; this finished, make the reflections on the ice, beginning with carnation No. 1 for the ice nearest the castle, and ending near the bottom of the plate with the deepest shade of light sky-blue, using the colors mixed for the sky. Paint the foliage in the background with neutral gray and sky-blue mixed with turpentine and fat oil for the darker tones, and turquoise-blue with neutral gray, turpentine and fat oil for the lighter parts, also for shading the darker portions of the snow. Then take brown No. 4 as it comes from the tube, with a little turpentine when necessary, for the shading of the trees in the foreground, the outlining of the castle, and the tufts of grass and edges of the ice in places where the copy requires it.