CHAPTER X.
PRINTING FROM NATURE’S TYPES.
LAST summer we made some lovely impressions of flowers, leaves, and sprays; then we tried landscapes and all sorts of beautiful designs.
It is really delightful and fascinating work. You are led on and on, always with a fancy to try something else to see how it will come out, and seldom, if ever, is it a disappointment or failure, a new interest being felt with every fresh print made. Moreover, you are sure of having your picture original and the only one of its kind, for as no two flowers or leaves are precisely alike, so no print can be an exact copy of another. And then it takes only a few moments for the work which could not be accomplished in thrice the time should a drawing be made of the same design.
Let me tell you how to make an “Impression Album” a book of printed flowers and leaves. You who have houseplants will find it a delightful winter recreation, a novel pleasure, and you can enjoy the pretty work even more during your summer vacation, with wild flowers at your command.
Making Prints.
Pink Oxalis.
The “prints” are taken from the natural flowers or leaves themselves. Girls who have no knowledge at all of drawing or of printing can with little trouble make these Impression Albums, and students of botany will find the work supplies valuable memoranda of leaves and plants, as the print preserves details of the form, fibre and veining of foliage and petal such as no drawing or photograph can. The printing can be made wholly accurate, giving all the minutiæ of construction.