Fig. 6. Pilaster: Chrysanthemums.
In mixing the distemper (whiting and size), powder colours are used to get the tone desired. This will vary with the taste of the reader, the use the room is put to, and the aspect, whether on the shady or sunny side of the house. Do not let it be too dark, or muddy in tone: a cheerful terra-cotta, with a dash of amber in it, if on the shady side; or some tone of sage green, French grey, or peacock blue, if on the sunny side. Perhaps the best way is to keep your eyes open when passing some decorator’s establishment, or buying the paper for the dado, and fix upon the tone of colour you would like. Then mix some harmonizing tints which will go well with the wall colour for your stencil work. You will find that if you decide upon stencilling in dark tones upon light, that it will be more pleasing to get these richer, that is more pure, than the ground colour. The three rich or primary colours are red, blue, and yellow. In mixing your stencil colours, approach these in purity, according to the tone used. These powder colours are obtained by ounces or pounds at colourmen’s shops. The first thought to the beginner, if he wishes to darken a tone, is to put black (lamp-black) in. In practice this must be used sparingly. Rather get your strength of tint by using pure colours. With distemper colours, you will find that they are much darker wet than dry. If you wish to employ more colours than one, each colour should have a separate stencil.
Having made your stencils, fixed upon and mixed your colours, and indicated the position of the repeats, the next step is the direct application of the colour. This is usually done with flat-headed hog-hair brushes, about ¾ of an inch across, specially made for the purpose. With your palette knife spread out a thin film of the colour on the palette, which may be the back of a plate, or a glazed tile, charge the flat end of the brush with it, and bring it down perpendicularly upon the stencil. Don’t overcharge the brush. If the pattern is irregular in its details, do every other one with one side of the stencil, and then having been round, wash off the colour from the stencil, and turn it round and do the intervening repeats. The lines are put on with a smaller brush, using the bevelled side of the straight-edge to guide the hand, using more pressure for a broad line, and charging the brush heavily with colour. Brushes specially made for lining, known as Fitch hair tools, cost, according to size, from 1-1/2d. to 5d. each. Stencilling brushes cost only a few pence.
The method of producing designs, stencils, and using the stencils is employed in the production of designs for paper-hangings, carpets, floor cloths, damasks and most flat manufactured materials, except that the white used is flake-white, and the colours are mixed with gum and water. The colours are known in the trade as tempera colours. The ground is laid evenly upon strained cartridge paper, and absolute flatness of tint in working out the design may be gained by using stencils. In making irregular designs, that is designs which are not symmetrical, the whole composition has to be drawn and traced.
In decorating a room, there is a very considerable range of choice in the styles available, some idea of which is given in the accompanying designs, from the purely ornamental ones of Figs. 1 and 2 to the natural treatment of Figs. 4 and 6. The design suitable for the top of a dado as Fig. 1 would, with a slight modification, equally suit the frieze of a room, as both are horizontal treatments; but for perpendicular applications, the designs should be redrawn. Some idea of the fresh treatment required is given in Fig. 1a, where the parts of the composition have been re-arranged to suit a vertical position. Should it be desired to adopt two colours, the principle to be acted upon is to make the smaller masses darker tones, and more intense colours, the larger the mass, the lighter and more neutral the tone should be. Fig. 4 is equally adapted for a frieze or dado top. It is designed in squares, so that by a re-arrangement of the squares, i.e., by placing the squirrel squares under the oak-leaf squares, it can be made suitable for a vertical treatment, or for the body of the dado. In designing such patterns as Fig. 6, where again two or more colours may well be used, care should be taken that the repeats fit well in with one another, so that no ugly spaces are left unfurnished, as decorators say, and also to prevent the recurrence of horizontal or diagonal lines. This is a failure with many commercial designs and is a fault very distressing to the eye.
How a Portrait Bust is Made.—The chief work of the sculptor consists in working in clay; therein lies the main portion of his art, and there are those at the head of their profession who rarely handle a chisel, and then only to give a final touch here and there after their carver has finished his work. Moreover, there are many more busts made in bronze and in terra-cotta than in marble; but the initial procedure of building up is the same in all cases.
The first thing a sculptor does in setting about a bust is to fix a square, upright peg, or support, about twenty inches in length, into a wooden platform eighteen inches square. The platform, in order to prevent warping, should be made of two pieces of board so joined as to have the grain of the one running transverse to the other. The peg is generally furnished with a bar, like a Latin cross, and is provided at the top with what is called an armature, that is, two pieces of lead piping looped over the peg from side to side, so as to form, as it were, the outline of a head. The ends of one piece are nailed to either side of the top of the peg, and the ends of the other to the back and front of it; or the armature may consist (as some sculptors prefer that it should) of a “loop” of lead-piping, fixed to a large nail, with what is called a “butterfly” attached (see illustration). The transverse, or crosspiece, is fitted into a slot cut in the upright, and is intended to support the shoulders of the bust, the armature serving as the skeleton, so to speak, of the head. Being made of lead, the armature can be bent this way and that, and twisted about, even after it has been covered with clay. This is a very important matter, as a portrait frequently consists as much in a characteristic pose of the head as in the exact representation of features, and the peculiarity or habit of the one whose bust is to be made cannot always be perceived at the first sitting, everybody attitudinising more or less at first when about to have a likeness taken. But after a while the sitter is sure to forget himself; then the natural pose comes, and the sculptor flexes his armature this way or that, and secures the right expression, in so far as the turn or “cant” of the head is concerned.
