Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Exquisite Handwriting

La Operina is a slim volume of 32 pages. It teaches italic handwriting and is still essential reading. It shows great handwriting on every page. It is more than a set of model sheets, however. It describes Arrighi’s underlying forms and two basic entry movements. It covers the spacing of lines, words and letters. It deals with slant and joins.

Click on the words "The book"

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Computer Generated Islamic Star Patterns

Taprats Computer Generated Islamic Star Patterns
Download the free application or use the applet online.

A VICTORIAN SCRAPBOOK ALBUM

A VICTORIAN SCRAPBOOK ALBUM from Steve Johnson Cyberheritage

Pictures of the Victorian Page

Pictures of the Victorian Page
University of Stirling, UK
This online exhibition features some of the library's collection of Victorian illustrated books. Themes in this exhibition: Flowers, Birds, Butterflies, Sea Life, Geography/History, Literature and Religion. Thumbnails lead to larger images.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Mayang's Free Textures

Mayang offers very large .jpg files for our use as backgrounds or whatever.
These textures are Copyright � Mayang Murni Adnin, 2001-2004. They have all been taken by our own cameras or created by ourselves. They are free to use for all uses, whether commercial or non-commercial (you may incorporate them into your work with no requirement to pay us any licensing fee etc).
This is floral tile from the brick and ceramic page. All thumbnails lead to larger images.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Vintage photo gallery from Consumer Reports

Vintage photos from Consumer reports.
Here is a permanent in 1938

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Poster size printing

The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge rasterized pictures out of relatively small image files. The pictures can be assembled into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size!
The Rasterbator is very easy to use. You can either upload a file from your computer or use any file that is publicly available in the internet. After you have cropped and selected a desired size for the image, the rasterbated image will be sent to you as an easily printable pdf file. (Sent to you means that you will be asked if you want to download it.)

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Typefaces

From ArtSearch again. A collection of antique typefaces from their manuscripts. These two actually made me gasp.

Torniello
From Francesco Torniello's treatise "L'Alfabeto" of 1517


Amphiarea
Vespasiano Amphiarea, "Opera ... nelle quale s'insegna a scrivere...", Venice 1572.
Woodcuts. The horizontal lines help copying, and also emphasize that the letter-height is eight times the diameter of the main lines.

Thumbnails on the website all lead to larger images of each letter.

Bookplates

From ArtSearch at The Australian National University. Their collection of printer's ornaments and bookplates

Each thumbnail leads to a larger image.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Personality Tests and Tools

Lots of personality tests. These are my results from taking the 30 question Left Brain, Right Brain test. Hey! I'm in better shape than I thought.

Brain Lateralization Test Results
Right Brain 48%
Left Brain 58%

Left brain dominant individuals are more literal, articulate, and to the point. They are good at understanding directions and anything that is explicit and logical. They can have trouble comprehending emotions and abstract concepts, they can feel lost when things are not clear, doubting anything that is not stated and proven.

Right brain dominant individuals are more visual and intuitive. They are better at summarizing multiple points, picking up on what's not said, visualizing things, and making things up. They can lack attention to detail, directness, and the ability to explain their ideas verbally, leaving them unable to communicate effectively.

Overall you appear to be Left Brain Dominant
-----------------------------------------
The ideal is to develop both your left and right brain. Many people identify their personality with being more right or left brained. "I am just not verbal" or "I just don't like art". The right and left brain are just functions to be utilized, they are not who you are. You are the manager, coach, architect, developer of your functions. No matter how developed one side of your mind is, if you have deficiencies in the other you will be functionally crippled. Right brain deficiencies inhibit your comprehension of life - who you are, where you stand, what's the point. Left brain deficiencies will inhibit your ability to express yourself verbally to others, leaving you mute to the world.

Grandmother's Postcards


Fellow Oregonian, Terry Blackburn lovingly presents his grandmother's collection of postcards. He shares the fronts and backs of all the cards including postmarks and messages. Many of the cards are uncirculated.
Clicking on each of his thumbnails will take you to the larger images.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Danceteria Flyers

During the early 1980s, Rudolf's Danceteria was a prime partying place for the NYC scene.
The staff artist was named Miguel. These two are my favorites.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Stamp Ephemera

These stamps are in the Karl Kasten photograph collection [scrapbook] in the exhibit The Chinese in California 1850-1925 at the Library of Congress. I am not able to get a direct link to these beautiful stamps so all the links go to the front page of the exhibit. From there click Search by Keyword and enter Karl Kasten stamps. You will get a short list. Click Gallery View and you will see these. Clicking on them will take you to a medium resolution image. Click higher resolution and save that one.

Karl Kasten is a painter, printmaker in Berkeley, California. A very personal form of Abstract Expressionism characterizes his work. Known for his collographs. A collograph is printed on an etching press and developed by adding materials to the print plate using acrylic glue.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Artists and Children's Books in 1920s Japan

These lovely children are made of paper. Look closely at the words on the children. It's English and French! This is my favorite image in the beautiful exhibit at The International Library of Children's Literature / National Diet Library in Japan
















Kodomo no kuni
Artists and Children's Books in 1920s Japan
The introduction explains:
The Picture Book Gallery No. 2 Exhibit centers around some 300 illustrations published in the Kodomo no kuni picture book magazine during the first decade after its inauguration in 1922.
The editorial policy of Kodomo no kuni was to encourage the free and unrestrained imagination of children by way of art and present fine works of decorative art that would foster the wholesome development of their best human qualities. The Gallery of major artists of the Kodomo no kuni is intended to show how these illustrators, close observers of the children of the time, gave free and artistic expression to their depiction of children.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Johannes Lencker

The beauty of letterforms and geometry. Stunning.
Lencker Alphabet

The links to the alphabet images are in blue.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

The Ivory Project

One of my favorite hangouts is the Smithsonian. The Ivory Project: Advertising Soap in America 1838 -1998 is image intensive. Some is amusing because of stereotypes and other images are disgusting because of racism but the exhibit is delightful.
I do admit to snagging the larger versions (150ppi) of some of the images like this one I made into a birthday card
Gray Hair

And this one became a postcard.
Dear Diary

Employment Opportunity

Apply to the Secretary of the "Neglected Home Department" !!!
I love the Library of Congress. This is from the exhibit
An American Time Capsule, Three centuries of Broadsides and other Printed Ephemera.
This sign cracked me up!

Generally, if there is access to high resolution .tiffs the item does not have a copyright and may be used. The highest resolution prints the best but can also take awhile to download. Browsers can't see .tiffs so you may have to right click on the link and choose Save Target As.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Print your own beautiful music

I don't have much in the way of ephemera and prefer instead to print my own. The libraries, museums and universities of the world are my favorite sources. Many of you will have seen these before but some of my friends need directions to specific items.
Old musical scores are a beautiful addition to collage and decoupage. These are especially lovely and available in large (150ppi) and larger (300ppi)

Chopin Early Editions consist of digitized images of all scores in the University of Chicago Library's Chopin collection. Users can search or browse Chopin Early Editions via a variety of data points, including titles, genres, and plate numbers.
Choose a title, click view score then use the drop down box to view each and every exquisite page.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Proportion Calculator

This handy tool will help you figure what percentage to use for scanning and copying. Want that flower to go from 3.75 inch to exactly 5.25? Use this proportion calculator at Meisel.com.
Enter your known dimensions in the top boxes and at least one of your target dimensions in the bottom. Click calculate. You have the percentage of increase or decrease you need. I love this tool.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Boxmaker

This Super Deluxe Tuckbox Maker by Craig P. Forbes will make a box template to your measurements
Make one for your ATCs!

Sorry these links had a problem but they are working now.