Fig. 122—Materials for Little Jack Horner.
Any subject which pleases the fancy can be illustrated in this way, and the children will soon be deeply interested in the work and delighted at the strange and striking pictorial characters that can be produced by ingenious combinations.
Stories and little poems may be very nicely and aptly illustrated; but the "Mother Goose Melodies" are, perhaps, the most suitable subjects with which to interest younger children, as they will be easily recognized by the little folk.
Take, for instance, the "Three Wise Men of Gotham," who went to sea in a bowl. Will not [Fig. 119] serve very well as an illustration of the subject? Yet these figures are cut from advertising cards, and no two from the same card. [Fig. 120] shows the materials; [Fig. 119] shows the result of combining them.
Again, the little man dancing so gaily ([Fig. 122]) is turned into "Little Jack Horner" eating his Christmas pie ([Fig. 121]), by merely cutting off his legs and substituting a dress skirt and pair of feet clipped from another card. The Christmas pie in his lap is from still another card.
In making pictures of this kind, figures that were originally standing may be forced to sit; babies may be placed in arms which, on the cards they were stolen from, held only cakes of soap, perhaps, or boxes of blacking; heads may be ruthlessly torn from bodies to which they belong, and as ruthlessly clapped upon strange shoulders; and you will be surprised to see what amusing, and often excellent, illustrations present themselves as the result of a little ingenuity in clipping and pasting.
Another kind, which we shall call the
Transformation Scrap-Book
will be found exceedingly amusing on account of the various and ever-changing pictures it presents.