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Originally published in the 1900s, Home Arts and Crafts shows how to teach yourself modelling in clay, modelling in gesso, wood carving, fret sawing, poker work, pyrogravure, leather decoration, saw-piercing, etching on metal, metal hammering, bent-iron work, applied design, ornament, wall-paper designing, textile designing, tile designing, damaged china restoring, "grangerising", taxidermy, etc., featuring numerous illustrations and working drawings.

Contents Covered:

• Modelling
  • Modelling in Clay
    • Materials and Appliances
    • Working from the Cast
    • Working from Life: The full-length figure -- The stand for a bust -- The draped figure -- Proportions -- The statuette
  • Modelling in China Clay: Useful for small figures made to be fired -- Tinted clays -- Modelling in low relief
  • Modelling in Wax: Modelling wax -- "Composite Clay," a substitute
  • Modelling (Painting) in Gesso: A composition of whiting and size, resembling putty -- Attaches itself to any surface -- Very pliant -- Tinted and gilded gesso -- Metallic lacquers
  • Plaster Casts
    • From the Clay Model
    • From Life
    • Gelatine Moulds for Plaster Casts
• Wood-Carving
  • Chip (Notch) Carving: The most elementary form of wood-carving -- Woods -- For a first attempt -- Finishing -- Polishing
  • Tools and Appliances: Made-up "Sets for Amateurs" to be avoided -- Transfer paper -- Carver's bench -- Tool chest -- "Holdfast" and "Bench Screw" -- "Bench Bolts"
  • Preliminary Practice -- Care Of Tools
  • Surface Decoration: "Dragon" or "Viking" style, perhaps, most artistic kind of surface carving -- Suitable for rulers, paper-knives, tea-trays, etc.
  • Relief Carving: Simple exercises for beginners -- Finishing with raw linseed oil -- Polishing -- Stamped backgrounds -- A Gothic dado rail -- The cardboard "Mould" -- Decoration of edges of shelves -- Diaper designs valuable in places of secondary importance, the more prominent spaces and panels being reserved for decoration of more character
  • Carving in the Round: Lancewood excellent for the purpose -- How two spoons may be carved from a single block -- The fretwork "horse" -- Shaping the bowl and handle -- Heads for walking-stick handles
• Fret-Sawing
  • Misapplication of the craft -- The only suitable designs are geometrical, or natural forms conventionally treated -- Fret-cut panels for insertion in joiners' work more appropriate than articles made up wholly of fret-work -- How to use the tools -- Finishing
• Pyrogravure
  • Evolution of "Poker Work": Originally done on wood, with small red-hot kitchen poker; then with a set of poker-like points, and, finally, with heated platinum points -- Pyrography is more allied to etching than painting
  • Tools and Materials: Platinum the best metal for pyrogravure, no other having its peculiar quality of absorbing the heat conveyed by hydrocarbon vapour obtained from benzoline -- Pattern points to be had in great variety -- The wood -- Polishing best done by rubbing in pure linseed oil -- Dye staining -- Gilding and silvering -- Treating with hot sand
  • Application of the Platinum Point: The point may be continuously heated and regulated by means of a little hand-bellows attached to machine specially made for the purpose
  • Pyrogravure on Leather: The burnt line differs considerably from that on wood -- Excellent for leather bookbindings, and, on white or brown kid, for ornamentation of small leather domestic articles
  • Treatment of Some Designs
  • Pyrogravure in Interior Decoration: Not only furniture, mantelpieces and the like, but ceiling, walls, doors, and even flooring may be so decorated
  • Glass Pyrogravure: Effect similar to that of etching on glass with acid -- Special point, with inner appliances to keep it at white heat, necessary -- Very hard glass only available
• Leather Decoration
  • Stamping -- Gilding -- Painting: Tools and appliances -- Oil colours mixed with varnishes to correspond, applied with sable brushes -- The varnishes and oil colours
  • Boiled Leather Work -- The "Cuir Bouilli" of the Middle Ages -- The leather when quite soft is pressed into moulds and finally shaped with wood or bone implements -- Bookbinders' and brass-workers' stamps and punches also used -- Painting, silvering, gilding, etc.
  • Bookbindings: The Mosaic mode -- Tooling
  • Lincrusta and Anaglypta Decoration: Both materials may be decorated in the manner of leather
• Metal Work
  • Saw-Piercing: Metal is scarcely more difficult than wood to work with the fret-saw. -- Cut or sawed metal useful for strap-hinges and lock-plates -- Polished with powdered pumice-stone and finished with rotten stone
  • Etching on Metal
  • Hammered Metal
    • Materials -- Annealing: Selection of the Metal
    • Tools and Appliances: The rawhide mallet -- The tracers -- Raising tools -- The cement or pitch block -- The cushion -- Blow lamp -- Spatula, or smoothing iron, etc.
    • Preparations for Work: Preparing the metal -- Attaching it to the cement block
    • Transferring the Design
    • The First Attempt: The tracing or outlining
    • Flat chasing
    • Raising and modelling
    • Finishing
    • The background
    • Textures
    • Raising from the back
    • Lacquering
  • Bent- and Light Wrought-Iron Work: Bent-iron work in its simplest form is light, and easily within scope of the amateur -- Known as "Venetian Ribbon Work," and practised by young ladies -- Sheet-iron work heavier and rather complicated; more suitable for amateur artisan
• Applied Design
  • Preparatory Study: Elements of design -- What is applied design -- Can one become a designer by studying at home? -- Floral and plant study, very important -- Constant exercise in outline-drawing of plant forms necessary -- Floral analysis -- Literature of art -- Two valuable textbooks
  • Natural and Conventional Ornament: Geometrical groundwork the common element in all good design -- Each handicraft has its peculiar limitations and differences in conventionalising -- The outline of the cloisonné enamel workman, the decorative lead lines in painted glass, the "couched" outline in embroidery -- One can depart far from a natural form without sacrificing the beauty of the motive
  • The Construction of Ornament: The ornamentist can classify all pattern work according to its structure -- The skeletons that underlie the whole mass of repeated patterns are very few -- The "Drop" match, a device to avoid the monotony of a series of checkers -- The "Plain" Match -- The "Turnabout" match -- How to prove a design
  • Wall-Paper Designing: Manufacturers generally prefer simple patterns conventionally treated to floral and other naturalistic patterns needing many printings -- Things to avoid -- Dimensions of a design -- The "Repeat" -- The device of "Stepping"
  • Textile Designing: The three ways of applying a pattern to a fabric -- Four effects or shades may be gained using only black - Carpets classified for designing purposes -- The design or "point" paper -- No amount of good ornament in a carpet will compensate for bad colour
  • Tile Designing: Classification of designs for tiles -- Study of manufacturers' illustrated books of specimen patterns will give intending designers much information -- The smaller manufacturers most likely buyers of designs by outsiders
  • Preparations of Working Designs: Any mechanical means permissible -- The design must be full working size -- Ruled or "point" paper necessary for carpets, oil-cloths, and certain woven fabrics, but not employed for designs for wall-paper, woven silk fabrics, or cretonnes, or printed fabrics -- How the" Distemper" colours are prepared -- Wall-paper designs -- Carpet designs -- Silken fabric designs -- Book-cover designs ("cloth" bindings) made in pen-and-ink on white Bristol board, from which a metal "process" block is reproduced as a die
• Miscellaneous
  • Retouching Photographers' Negatives
  • Restoration of Damaged China
  • "Extra-Illustrating" or "Grangerising"
  • Taxidermy
    • Skinning and Preparing Birds
    • Mounting
    • Insect Taxidermy

Price: $4.95

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