Part 11 (1/2)

The bookplate is an intensely personal possession. The first were heraldic, identifying the possessors by their coats of arms. Modern bookplates usually reflect some personal taste of the owner, his hobby, his house, his portrait, or the type of books he collects.

Nothing could be more fitting than one made from a photograph taken by its possessor, and yet in the writer's collection of many thousand bookplates covering several centuries and many countries, there are less than a dozen photographic examples.

They are easily made. The most usual method is to choose a suitable photograph, a view of the home or library interior, a loved landscape or view, a symbolical figure with a book, a genre which may be a pun on the owner's name, or a picture relating to his chief hobby, and draw a more or less ornamental frame containing the words ”Ex Libris”

or ”His Book,” together with the name, about it. There are other wordings, but the above are the commonest. The whole is then photographed down to the proper size, usually three or four inches high, and prints made either by photography or from a halftone block.

The nude female figure is a frequent motive in bookplates, whether photographic, or etched or engraved. The example we show is the work of two artists, one of whom made the photograph while the other designed the framework.

[Ill.u.s.tration: By A. E. Goetting and Will Ransom. FIG. 110.--A PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKPLATE.]

LANDSCAPES AND GROUPS ON THE DINING-ROOM TABLE

Did you ever try building landscapes on the dining-room table? If not, learn how easy it is and try it out some evening or rainy Sunday, when you don't feel like tramping across country with muddy roads and flat lightings.

The easiest kind of pictures to make in this way is an imitation of snow scenes. Any white material may be used, as snow, i.e., fine salt, powdered sugar, flour, or whatever the kitchen closet or the chemical shelf may produce. A range of mountains may easily be made by merely heaping up the material and then modeling ravines and broken slopes with a sharp pencil. A brilliant side lighting should be used to give the effect of sunrise or sunset, and clouds may be printed in from a cloud negative or obtained by means of a roughly painted background.

Perhaps mountains are more naturally represented by the use of a few sharp-angled pieces of coal from the cellar, or fragments of broken stone from the nearest quarry or monument maker. On these, after arranging, the white powder may be sifted, lodging in a close imitation of nature. If a highly polished table is used, reflections may be obtained as in a lake, or a sheet of gla.s.s with a dark cloth under it may be used for the same purpose.

More complicated landscapes may be made by using twigs as leafless trees, fence posts, etc., and children's toy houses may be introduced, particularly if well screened by brush and half buried in snow. Only the merest hint of the possibilities can be given, for they are endless.

The introduction of figures, in the shape of dolls, china and metal animals, carts, autos, railroad trains, etc., greatly widens the scope of such landscape work, but of recent years these figures have been more frequently used for tableaux, such as the one shown opposite.

Extremely comical pictures have been made with kewpies, billikens and other queer creatures and their animal friends, and with grotesque figures made of vegetables, fruit and eggs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: By Clark H. Rutter. FIG. 111.--FRIEND OR FOE.]