A Small Token…

thistledewmercantile — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:39:24 +0000

I’ve been working on this year’s Valentine designs, and thought I’d share with you the process of doing a papercutting from start to finish! It takes a bit of inspiration to get ideas for a historic-style papercutting. I usually spend a few hours going through reference books on early fraktur. I rarely do exact reproductions of historic pieces, but instead, try to get a feel for the layout of antique papercuts. I’ll also doodle a bit, trying to create birds and flowers that look like they were drawn a couple hundred years ago. And, I’ll read through the translations of the German sayings to find an inspiring phrase or verse.

The Gift is Small, The Love is Great is one of my favorite resources for Pennsylvania German fraktur. It focuses on small works of art, such as the Vorschrift (writing samples), Book Plates, and Rewards of Merit that teachers once gave to their students. The Gift is Small also includes little love notes and tokens of remembrance given between sweethearts and friends, as well as other little fraktur-style drawings. None of the artwork in this book is particularly elaborate, but mostly just small tokens made by simple folk.

In coming up with new designs, other
sources of inspiration are also required…

(My art kiddos have asked about those little dishes of
chocolate chips hanging around the art room!)

And when the internal balance between visual references, doodling, coffee (or tea), and chocolate has reached the appropriate settings, I’ll start sketching. I start with a piece of paper cut to the size I need for the frame I want to use. I was trying to use two 6″ x 7″ frames that I had “ready-to-go,” so these cuttings are 4 & 1/2″ x 5 1/2″. However, there is actually a “historically correct” size that these little tokens should be! In the 18th and 19th centuries, “standard” sheets of paper were usually 13″ x 16″. Fraktur makers used either full sheets, half sheets, quarter sheets or eighth sheets to do artwork on, getting their finished size by simply carefully folding and tearing the paper. These tiny tokens were usually done on an eighth of a sheet of paper.

I almost always start my sketches from the outside in, establishing my borders by measuring carefully. Did you know there’s a correct way to make a square or rectangle? After years of being a frustrated young artist, I learned a few technical drawing skills in a college cartography class. Drawing “square” was one of them… Maybe that would make a Really Helpful Upcoming Post!

This will be the back of the papercutting. I have to keep reminding myself that everything will be backward on the finished piece. My originals will also get pretty smudgy from all the graphite dust, but it’s a necessary evil to designing. I keep trying to sketch on my Wacom tablet or my iPad, and I’m starting to get the hang of it, but there’s nothing like a real pencil and a kneaded eraser! Once I have the sketch close to how I want it, I start cutting…

I use a rubber-coated X-Acto knife with #11 blades. Any sort of padding or rubber on the handle is a HUGE help when doing lots of papercutting. Hand fatigue happens very quickly without it. I also go through blades like crazy… I cut mostly with the very tip edge of the blade, and curvy designs seem to snap them pretty quickly. Buy them in bulk! My knife… or my pair of scissors… are sort of like a second pencil to me. That’s what I use to straighten out my sketch lines and create the final design.

Once I have the original cut, I make a copy of it and use the copy to make a pattern for duplicate cuttings. As you can see, this is a relatively simple design… much of the artwork will be added in the painting process. But first, I’ll stain it to add some age. I make a strong solution of instant coffee and boiling water, and apply it to the papercutting with a natural sponge.

I’ll actually soak up the excess coffee with the sponge so the paper isn’t sitting in puddles of water. I let the paper dry naturally (Usually… sometimes impatience gets the best of me!) and then iron it between two sheets of white paper to smooth out any wrinkles. Here are the two new Valentine designs once they are stained…

And… although I had every intention of showing the painting and inking process, I got into painting and forgot to take pictures. So, here’s what they look like AFTER they’re painted…

I went with rather bright colors on these, which believe it or not, is quite true to history. The Pennsylvania Germans LOVED color. The colors in most of the antique artworks we see today have lost a lot of their original vibrancy due to sunlight and time. So I sort of compromise a bit… adding staining to make them look old, but also pumping up the color to make them look new. Artistic license.

Once they’re framed, they look like this…

I should be adding them to our shop’s Sweet Remembrances page very soon… Keep an eye out for them! We’re going to make a limited supply of each for this year due to time constraints, so if you need one let me know!

Do Fun Stuff with Old Friends.

thistledewmercantile — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:42:49 +0000

Well, last week we ran away as just the two of us.
This past weekend, we ran away with Friends.

Old Friends. The Best kind.

We’ve been buddies with Randy & Beth since our girls
were toddlers… back to the time when you had to wait
for film to be developed… long before anyone heard of a blog.

About twenty years. Two decades.

Whoa.

Both our families had a Favorite Place to Be.
But we hadn’t Been there together…

Our first glimpse was exciting…

We had to refrain ourselves from shouting “WhooHoo!”
and running wildly down the street. So instead we dined
at Chowning’s and stopped at Charleton’s Coffee House
and tested out their Chocolate.

Yum. We bought some to take home.

We took long walks…

…down paths that our forefathers may have taken…

We saw Grand Palaces…

and abodes for those of the Middling Sort.

The guys talked about everything…

and we even came up with a possible
cure for America’s current political problems…

No. Really. We wouldn’t do THAT.

But we definitely laughed a LOT.

Empty Nesters! The Freys and the Bakers heartily recommend
a weekend away with old and dear friends. You will have fun,
make new memories, and feel young again.

And you will really get a kick out of it
when your kids text to check on you!

Old friends, after all of these years,
Old friends, through the laughter and tears,
Old friends, What a priceless treasure!
~Bill & Gloria Gaither~

A Date with my Sweetie, Part Two…

thistledewmercantile — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:40:49 +0000

I took way too many pictures last week on our little day trip to fit into one post… so here’s the what we did AFTER we left the museum! We headed to Longwood Gardens! We usually make a “Girl Trip” to Longwood around Christmas. Over the years, it’s included Mom, Robin, Jo, Kate, Nana Anne, and Me. I don’t think Chris has gone there at Christmas since the girls were pretty young, so it was all new to him! Every year, Longwood decorates with different flowers and has a different theme… this year was mostly red and white, and the theme was Gingerbread. Here’s what it looked like when you walked into the Conservatory…

And as you walked toward the back…

The photos really do not do it justice…

Hubby loved the Poinsettia Topiaries…

And I loved the Moravian Stars in the Rose Room…

There were trees made of Real Gingerbread,
and a Gingerbread Train…
THAT room smelled heavenly.

And a Gingerbread and Sugar-Glass Conservatory…

… And a Gingerbread Peirce duPont House!

But the best of all is the Indoor Children’s Garden!
We probably looked silly exploring in there since
we had no children with us!

All throughout the Children’s Garden, water drips, pours,
and spurts. It’s pretty amazing. The kids are so fun to watch as
they try to catch it or figure out where it’s going to come from next!

And I’m definitely not into scary Gargoyles…

But SOMEONE was a genius when they thought of this…

There were paint brushes available for the children
to “paint” with! The light changes color,
so they think they’re really doing something!

And I even came away with a new idea for an art project!

The ornaments on this tree were made by local elementary
school children… If you look closely, the designs were
taken from antique Butter Molds! What a neat idea to
combine art with early American history!

Hubby and I really did enjoy our “just us” day. We topped it off with a great Mexican dinner, and got home WAY past our bedtime! Being self-employed and usually having a mile-long “To Do” list, we often feel guilty taking a day off, but it’s a good thing to do every now and again.

A Date with my Sweetie, Part One…

thistledewmercantile — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:42:24 +0000

Last week, Hubby and I took a day to go exploring. We don’t do that often enough, but have resolved to try to go “do something” at least once a month. So we headed North, and ended up at the Delaware Art Museum for the first part of the day. Which actually ended up being pretty much the whole day, because one of us likes to read Every Single Plaque when in museums. (Name withheld to protect the guilty party.) However, the other one of us really likes art museums, so that person didn’t complain. Not one bit. We ended up seeing about half of the museum, and helped them close up. So that means we need to go back and see the other half, right?

One part of the museum focused on early American artists…

Still Life with Fruit by Severin Roesen

…And I can’t believe they let me take pictures!

I wrote a paper on Frederic Church last
year for an art history class…

South American Landscape by Frederic Church

…the paper also included Benjamin West!

The Return of Tobias by Benjamin West

There was a beautiful sculpture by John Rogers…

Coming to the Parson by John Rogers

And there was an exhibit of works on paper by a
twentieth-century Color Field artist…
I recognized her from my Art Appreciation textbook
and thought I’d better take a look…

Work on Paper by Anne Truitt

It was definitely an exhibit that made you stand back and say “Hmmm…”
I took a picture of this one because green is my favorite color.

A guard came in and explained to my dear perplexed
Hubby that the exhibit was “Arty.”

There was a momentary bonding between the two guys.

The Delaware Art Museum has a wonderful
collection of Pre-Raphaelite art,
like this painting that illustrates a scene from
Briar Rose, or The Sleeping Beauty…

The Council Chamber by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

And an allegorical painting depicting the
composition of music…

Veronica Veronese by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Pre-Raphaelites produced beautiful paintings that focused on nature, literature, and the Middle Ages. Early Pre-Raphaelite paintings had a Christian emphasis, but unfortunately as they grew toward a more aesthetic approach, they veered away from their origins. (If you read all the little plaques about them, you may get a bit disillusioned.) However, their illustrative style greatly influenced the artists of the next generation…

The Storyteller’s Art:
ReImagining America through Illustration

What a great exhibit.

Of course, Howard Pyle was the star.
He’s just plain incredible.

This is Hubby’s favorite…

The Fight on Lexington by Howard Pyle

I liked his black & white pen drawings
that look like old woodcuts…

Lady of the Lake by Howard Pyle

I also loved this poster for the very first
Children’s Book Week by Jessie Willcox Smith…

Illustration for Children's Book Week poster, 1919 by Jessie Willcox Smith

And I discovered a new female illustrator…
I LOVE this picture…

She Loved to Have the Children About Her by Eugenie Wireman

Howard Pyle operated a school for illustrators in Wilmington, Delaware in the early 1900′s, and N.C. Wyeth was one of his students! What I found to be really amazing was that about a third of his students were young women! There were some beautiful illustrations at the Delaware Art Museum by these talented ladies. Go see them if you get a chance!

And of course, we had to leave because they
were starting the turn out the lights…

The Crying Giant by Tom Otterness

And it’s the end of the post too…
but Part Two is coming soon!

The End by a member of Pyle's weekly sketching club

“They were never so finely told in prose before.
And then the pictures – one can never tire of
examining them & studying them.”
~ Mark Twain, in a letter to Howard Pyle,
on Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and his Knights~

Words to Live By…

thistledewmercantile — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:14:50 +0000

Brand New Year.

Y2K seems like it just happened last week.
And now we’re twelve years into the 2000′s.

Whoa. How did THAT happen?

I can remember being in third grade, and having to write a story about what life would be like in the year 2000. I have no idea what I wrote, but I do remember doing the math to see how old I would be… 34. And that number really seemed OLD. And now I’m almost twelve years past that!

I gave serious thought to making New Year’s Resolutions, but didn’t do it. I also thought about coming up with a fantastic new daily schedule for the New Year. Or a well-planned list of Things To Do. I love to make schedules and lists, much to the amusement of my family. However, it’s following them and doing them that is the problem. So in lieu of an Official List of 2012 Resolutions, or a detailed list of everything I’d like to accomplish this year, I’ve been jotting down phrases in the back of my journal that currently seem extra profound to me. They’re all scribbled on the last page… sort of a list of Principles I didn’t want to get lost in the midst of my daily ramblings to myself. They’ve been gathered from books I’ve read recently, Bible study, memories of my grandmothers, Pinterest & Etsy, and signs hanging on our walls. They’re rather random. Some are redundant… mostly the ones I really need to work on. And here they are… the things I’d like to “live by” this year…

One Another.
(Think of that as a verbal command.)

Don’t pass it by, pick it up.
Don’t put it down, put it away.

Build others up… Don’t tear them down.
(Or as my Great-Grandma Phillips would say…
“If you don’t have something nice to say…”)

Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

If it’s God’s Will, I will.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.
(Duct tape helps.)

J-O-Y
Jesus first, Others next, Yourself last.

No free-range eating.

Simplify – Simplify – Simplify
(If I ever get a tattoo, it would be this.)
(I can’t even begin to imagine me getting a tattoo.)
(Just in case I worried anyone.)

This too shall pass.

Today is a gift.

Redeem the time.

Take Joy.

I really truly think that putting these wise words into practice would make for a Really Awesome 2012.

Or any year.

Don’t you? Do you have any wise words to add?

Blocking in…

thistledewmercantile — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:50:27 +0000

This has been a rather quiet week, and I have to say that I’ve enjoyed it immensely! I have accomplished a few things, and even mailed off one more order today, but for the most part, I have puttered around the house. No rush. No hustle. Not even any bustle. All. Week. Long.

I talked to Kate this morning, and we both concurred that creativity takes thought. It’s not something you can schedule. You can’t be creative because you block in an hour on your calendar. You can produce something in one hour, but you can’t just muster up creativity. It takes thinking and playing and pondering and lots and lots of puttering to get the creative juices flowing freely. Too many days or weeks or months of “production” can squash creativity. Squash it flat.

Thus is the dilemma of the artist who runs a business.

All the business folks tell you to plan, schedule, and produce.
All the creativity folks tell you to putter aimlessly.
How in the world do you find the balance?

I think, maybe, it would be helpful to plan blocks of time where there is nothing pressing on you. Even if you have to pretend there’s nothing that has to be done yesterday. Maybe a couple of afternoons a week? Or an entire week off? This week has been a help to me… even though I still washed dishes and folded laundry, if the urge to sketch something struck me, I was able to put down the dish towel and go sketch. I can’t make a list of what I got done this week, but I can say I definitely recharged my creative batteries!

I’m working on a couple of oil paintings for a class I’m taking, and attempted to “produce” them a couple weeks ago. I had never really experienced working with oil, and just figured I’d do a simple painting or two and move on to another medium. Wrong. It took me half the afternoon to paint the background tones, and then I discovered I had added too much linseed oil to the paint, so my thin, watery (oily?) background took DAYS to dry. And this week… today… the last day of the week… was the first time I felt brave enough to fool with that messy stinky paint again.

First I played with paint… making tints and shades and tones…

…and discovered with oil paint, you can’t even rush that. I could have turned out a color wheel in no time flat with another medium, but today I only managed to work with yellow and violet. But I started to get a feel for the paint. It’s a lot more creamier than acrylics. And it’s supposed to go on thicker than watercolor. And it doesn’t smell as bad as I originally thought.

Then, before I washed things up and put it away, I took another look at those finally dry canvases. And went out to take photos of my chickens. ADD tendencies? Maybe. But this…

And this…

Turned into this…

And this…

That’s as far as I got with them, but I did what I should have done in the first place… blocked in the basic shapes of what I wanted to paint. I have no real hopes of these becoming fine paintings, and actually no real plan as to how they will turn out. But they are blocked in. Next time I get out the oil paints, I’ll have somewhere to start… a blocked in spot for something creative to develop.

Bread Pudding!

thistledewmercantile — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:13:06 +0000

Since we were talking about recycling Christmas cards the other day, I thought maybe recycling stale bread might be a good follow-up post! I hadn’t made bread pudding in quite a while, but we had oodles of leftover rolls from Christmas, and rather than feed them to the chickens, I thought I’d make it into something Hubby and I could eat!

This is actually a non-recipe. I go by “feel” with this one, and I really don’t think you can mess it up. Start with stale bread. We had about 18 dinner rolls left, so I broke them into bits in my large mixing bowl. Then I added about 1/2 cup of sugar, about a teaspoon of vanilla, about a teaspoon of cinnamon, two eggs, and enough milk to make a sloppy mixture. I mix it with my hands so I know for sure that it has the right feel. In ages past, I would have tasted it to make sure it was good and sweet, but I can’t recommend that due to the raw eggs. Pour the whole gloppy mess into a casserole dish, and bake it somewhere between 350 and 400 for somewhere between a half an hour and an hour. Our family always baked ours until it was hard enough to cut into squares, but it’s also good baked soft and served with whipped cream like they do in diners.

I’ve never met a “pretty” bread pudding, but it sure is yummy!

Before you toss them…

thistledewmercantile — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:16:19 +0000

My Nana Anne saved every card and note she was ever given. She stored them in those plastic zipped bags that blankets come in, and after she passed away, we spent several wonderful (and teary) days going through them and making up little bundles to return to certain family members. After a few hours, we could often look at the outside of a card and guess who it was from before looking inside… we all must gravitate to the same type of greeting cards each year!

But that wasn’t all Nana did with old cards. Coming from the “Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or Do Without” generation, a stash of old greeting cards was a treasure! When I was little, if I mentioned having nothing to do, Nana would always pull out a box-ful of cards, buttons, fabric scraps, or magazines, along with some scissors and a bottle of Elmer’s and tell me to “make something.”

And I did. These were the pre-video game days. We didn’t even know what a video was. Her TV only got two channels, and one of them was PBS, and I thought I was too old for Sesame Street. So days spent at Nana’s house were constructive instead of entertaining. If I didn’t busy myself by “making something,” she’s find some work for me to do… but she’d make that fun too. We’d take those old cards and cut them up to make new ones. Or gift tags. Or collage pictures. Or we would try to draw the picture that was on it.

“Be creative,” she’d say. “Imagination is a great nation.”

When I was in middle and high school, I became very interested in art, and developed close relationships with my art teachers. And guess what? They saved greeting cards too! In the pre-Google days, greeting cards were a free way of obtaining reference photos for drawing. Both of my favorite art teachers kept filing cabinets full of greeting cards, organized in manilla folders marked “Birds,” “Snow Scenes,” and “Flowers.” If I needed to know how to draw a rabbit, they would send me to dig through the “Reference File.”

So with that in mind, as I was taking down the Christmas cards this morning, I thought I’d share some ideas on how to re-use them before recycling or throwing them away…

Cut them up to make new scrapbook-style cards!
Save pictures that can be re-used, or even the sayings
from inside the cards! A box-full of card parts can keep
little hands busy on snowy winter days!

Use them to make Scrap Ornaments!
Scrap Ornaments date back to Victorian times,
when greeting cards were just coming into fashion.
Blumchen is a great resource for tinsel and other
supplies to turn your card tidbits into something special!

Make Gift Tags for next year!
Sometimes a small picture or the saying from
inside would make the perfect gift tag!

Start an Art Reference File!
Take an old shoe box, put in some cardboard dividers,
and file greeting card pictures according to subject!
The next time your 8 year-old wants to know how to
draw a camel, you’ll be prepared!

Draw it…
Tape a picture from a greeting card into your
art journal, and try to duplicate it on the opposite page.
Or, just try drawing elements of the picture,
such as a candlestick or manger.
It really does help to see how other artists depict
simple subjects. Artists often do a lot of “copying”
as they are learning how to draw!

For a challenge, tape HALF of a picture into
your journal and attempt to finish the other side!
Or tape in a picture of a person or animal
and draw the background around them!

Make a collage using bits and pieces from old cards!
Using Modge Podge or watered-down glue,
decorate a box to hold special Christmas treasures!

Make tiny boxes out of them!
Tutorial HERE!
We had a fun girl day, many years ago,
and spent the afternoon learning to make tiny
greeting card boxes! (Hello Poe Family!)
Jo and Kate showed Nana Anne how to make them,
and we soon had oodles of precious little boxes!
We even received the one on the left for Christmas this year,
made by ladies at church! (Hi Donna & Barbara!)

There are lots of other ways to use old cards…
A quick internet search will give you plenty of ideas!

Be Creative! Imagination is a great nation!
~Nana Anne~

Some things are just too pretty to throw away.

Silent Comes the Joy…

thistledewmercantile — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:53:38 +0000

Silent comes the Joy, without proud announcement,
Like the hint of dawn is whispered to the night.
So then without warning, morning breaks victorious,
Extravagant and glorious – heralding the day.

Silent comes the Joy, delivered to a manger,
In the quiet night of stable and the world.
A world in need of angels and visions of life’s meaning,
To reinstate the dreaming that sin had torn away.

Silent comes the Joy, like a spring erupting,
Unseen in the desert, then carving out a stream,
Coursing down the mountain, soon a torrent swelling,
Jubilantly telling the pow’r of the unseen.

Silent comes the Joy…

~ Gloria Gaither ~

If you’re in Delaware, join us tomorrow at the
Christmas Shop in the Odessa Fire Hall!

Even better… spend the entire day at
Christmas in Odessa!

Unmerited Favor…

thistledewmercantile — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:30:02 +0000

Sometimes a word can become so familiar to us that we forget its actual meaning.

Or the depth of its meaning.

Like Grace.

Grace is not just a little singsong ditty we teach our children to say before meals. Or even the prayer of an eloquent adult. As a matter of fact, you have to go all the way down to definition #19 in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary to find that definition of Grace. However, if you look at the first few definitions that Mr. Webster assigned to his entry for Grace, it’s a rather meaning-full word:

Grace:

1. Favor; goodwill; kindess

2. Appropriately, the free and unmerited favor of God,
the spring and source of all the
benefits men recieve from Him.

3. Favorable influence of God;
divine influence or the influence of the Spirit
in renewing the heart and restraining from sin.

4. The application of Christ’s righteousness
to the sinner.

5. A state of reconciliation to God.

I was speaking to a customer at our last show while I was working on this papercutting. Her church had been doing an extensive study on Grace, and she commented on how we need to relearn the meaning of words like Grace from time to time. It seems nearly everywhere you look… on blogs, in bookstores, in artwork, in sermons… Grace is a popular theme, and people are getting excited about it as it begins to take on more significant meaning in their lives.

About two hundred years ago, a man named John Newton discovered the real, true meaning of Grace. Having been the captain of a slave ship, Newton experienced a spiritual conversion and soon gave up his career on the sea to follow the Lord. Convicted by his past, he penned the words to probably our most well-known hymn…

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Grace… It’s free.

All we have to do is accept it.