HOW TO STENCIL IN OIL COLOURS.
Ordinary tube colours should be used for stencilling on your furniture
mixed with a little copal varnish and slightly thinned with turps.
Driers are put up in tubes under the names of _sacrum_ or sugar of
lead, and it is as well to mix a little with your colours as it makes
them dry off quickly. The white should be mixed up in a batch with the
varnish, driers and turps, and be of the consistency of thick cream.
Your tinting colours should be squeezed out on your palette so that you
can readily mix up your tones.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—_Panel of corner cupboard decorated in
stencilling. The centre panel is founded on the iris, with the daisy at
base._]
Stencil brushes are round and short in the hair, so that they present
a flat surface on the stencil. You require three or four, two about an
inch in diameter, one five-eighths and one three-eighths or a quarter
of an inch. Two or three small flat hog brushes for touching in ties
and putting in particular parts of a stencil should be handy. We will
begin with the stiles of the door of chiffonier, which is decorated
with the ornamental stencil B, Fig. 1 in first article. We put the
corners in first and this corner I cut separately as I could not fit in
the stencil I was using. Having done this see how your other stencil
will work out, for it does not look workmanlike to start at the top
and find that you have to end it with a different spacing to what you
started with. If you begin in the centre of each stile and work to the
corners you will obtain a symmetrical result. Always remember to space
out any part of your work which is conspicuous, so that the stencil
seems to just fit in the space as though it were cut specially for
it. I find it a good plan to have some pins handy, and just tap in a
couple, one at each end of the stencil, to keep it from shifting while
you rub on the colour. Both your hands are then at liberty. Or you can
get a friend to hold the plate down on the wood, but the pinning does
almost better. If you shift the stencil before you have knocked out the
impression you will not get a sharp result.
Having tinted your white to the desired tone spread a little of the
colour on to your palette and knock your stencil brush on to this
colour a few times, so that the brush takes up some of the colour, then
begin by gently knocking the brush on to the wood over the cut-out
portions until you have completely covered them with colour. Don’t
try to do this too quickly. Proceed gently, getting the colour out of
your brush by degrees, and take up the colour from the palette in the
same gentle manner. The reason for this caution is that if you take
up too much colour at a time in your brush and knock it violently on
the stencil plate, you will find when you lift up the same that the
impression, instead of being sharp will be blobby at the edges through
the colour having worked under the stencil.
The art of stencilling is in getting sharp, clean impressions, and this
can only come of care and taking time. On no account get the colour
too thin. It should be of such a consistency as will enable you to
knock it out of the brush with slight exertion. If too stodgy thin it
with a drop or two of turps and linseed oil, and then mix with palette
knife, but on no account get turps into the stencil brush or you will
get very bad impressions, for the colour is sure then to run under the
stencil. Therefore again I say, don’t hurry.
I have said nothing yet as to the tones of colour to be used. This is
a matter of taste, and is a most difficult subject to write about.
Two artists will use the same colours, and yet one with an eye for
colour will give us beautiful harmonies, and the other one wanting
this delicacy of perception will give us crudity. Form in your mind
some tone of colour suggested, say, by the warm mellow colours of
autumn, the soberer russet and greys of the winter, or the light,
fresh, delicate tints of spring, and carry these suggestions out in
your decoration. The corner cupboard, Fig. 1, we might tint in the
russet tones, and you will find that such colours as raw sienna, raw
umber, yellow ochre, _terra verte_, burnt sienna, chromes Nos. 1 and 2,
Prussian blue, French ultramarine, and light red will supply you with
a very varied palette. White tinted with yellow ochre, raw sienna or
raw umber are all good tones for stencilling in, and each of them can
be mixed or toned with one of the others. The addition of _terra verte_
or Prussian blue will give you soft tones of green. By using such a
yellow as ochre to make greens you obtain softer, quieter tones than if
you used chromes. Suppose you have small quantities of the above three
tints mixed on your palette, you can take a little of one in your brush
and knock that out on the stencil, and then a little of the next tint
and knock that out, and so on with the third. In this way you get a
variety of tints in the stencilled border and yet a certain “tone” will
run all through, which gives one a sense of harmony, and at the same
time variety, and so lessens the hard mechanical look which stencilling
in just one colour is apt to give. Then, too, when you have knocked out
one impression before lifting off the stencil, you can take one of the
hog hair brushes or the smallest stencil brush and put in the body and
the portion of the wings around it of the butterflies B in the corner
cupboard, Fig. 1, in a little darker colour, say more raw umber or
sienna. It is very little more trouble and greatly adds to the general
effect to give these accents. The idea is to make the butterflies come
off the web, so keep the web lighter and the insects darker. In the
border B, Fig. 1, in first article the flowers might be touched in to
bring them off the lines of the background.
The pattern on the spaces surrounding the door A, Fig. 1, can still
be in the same tones, varied as I have suggested, but the panels of
the doors being themselves more naturalesque, might be a little more
positive in colouring, _i.e._, the leaves and grass can be put in,
in quiet, soft tones of green, while the flowers could be in lemon
chrome and white or bluish purple made of rose madder and French blue
or Indian red and Prussian blue lightened with white, but don’t make
the colouring too bright, so that it is in too strong contrast to the
stiles. Greens made of blue and chrome are much cruder than if you use
yellow ochre or raw sienna. Going back now to the colouring of the
chiffonier Fig. 1 (p. 13) in first article. The plinth or bottom D can
be in low-toned greens, not too dark but darker than the leaves in the
panels, while the daisies can be in grey made of white, raw umber, and
a touch of blue, with centres in yellow. Stencil the flowers first and
then with a small brush put in the yellow centres. A slight touch of
pink at the edges of the daisies might look well, effected by using a
small hog brush and a little rose madder. The leaves around the column
keep in the quiet greens used in plinth D. The back of the upper part
of chiffonier, Fig. 2, with its shelf can be treated like the panels
in colouring, and the festoon above the shelf can have the flowers in
the grey and the leaves in russet not too dark, and the ribbon in pale
blue. As you have a white surface to decorate, be careful not to get
your colouring too strong. Use plenty of white with all your colours,
for you will find that delicate tones are much pleasanter to live with
than heavy ones. A little of the pure colours from the tubes will tint
a lot of white, so the colours will not be a great expense. Buy the
flake white in half-pound tubes for cheapness.
In arranging stencils act somewhat on the plan I have observed, which
is to keep the more naturalesque stencils for such places as panels
or other flat, broad surfaces, and as a framing to them the more
ornamental patterns, to contrast with the natural ones. The butterfly
border on the stiles of the corner cupboard B, Fig. 1, is a good foil
to the iris panel, just as the border B, Fig. 1, is a good foil to the
daisy panel in the chiffonier.
The conventional grass seemed a suitable pattern for the plinth, and
such a purely ornamental design as a festoon not inappropriate to the
shaped top.
I have mentioned before that great variety can be obtained by combining
portions of different stencils. The plinth D, Fig. 1, of chiffonier,
for instance, is a combination of two, the flowers being from one and
the grass itself from another. The butterfly and sprig running border,
Fig. 1, in second article, I have shown in variation, and the border in
corner cupboard, A, Fig. 1, is made by taking the sprig portion only
and putting the root in between each impression. When you want only a
portion of a stencil cover over the rest with paper, so that you do not
get an impression of a part you do _not_ require.
Some colours are very fugitive such as indigo, crimson lake, yellow
lake, etc.; but the colours I have mentioned may be relied upon for
permanency.
When the stencilling is thoroughly dry it will preserve the work to
give it a coat of white hard varnish. Apply this freely with a flat hog
brush (or regular varnish brush), seeing that you miss no portion of
the surface. Keep it from the dust until dry and you will have a pretty
and useful article of furniture. Of course you may have some other
article to do up than the chiffonier I have sketched, which I took
simply because it was to my hand, but you can easily apply these hints
to your own necessities.
When your stencils are done with you wash them thoroughly in
turpentine, both back and front, and dry them and put them away,
keeping them flat.
While you are using your stencils wipe the back after each impression,
so that if any colour has worked there you can remove it. Have an old
board and some newspaper to lay the stencil on when you clean it.
With the batch of stencils given with these articles endless variations
and combinations are possible. Many of the patterns too could be easily
adapted for needlework; in fact, you have only to lightly stencil your
material in water colour and work over the impressions. Use Chinese
white if a dark textile, and lamp black and Chinese white if a light
one.
Though I have advised white paint for these two articles of furniture,
there is no reason why you shouldn’t try dark ones. Stencilling is
very effective on dark paint, and a cabinet or cupboard painted a dark
brownish green would look well with stencilling in shades of old gold.
To get a rich colour the final coat must have very little white with
it. For a brownish green use burnt sienna, black, deep chrome, and
touch of Prussian blue, with only enough white to make it light enough.
FRED MILLER.
VARIETIES.
HOW TO GET ON.
When Lord Esher took leave of the Bench and Bar recently, he made a
noteworthy utterance, which has an interest for all young people, even
though they are not lawyers or ever likely to be.
This eminent judge, who has sat on the judicial bench with great
distinction for twenty-nine years, told his hearers that resoluteness
of purpose had been the secret of his success.
“What I will say to all of you,” he remarked, “is this. I became a
judge because I had made up my mind and will, from the beginning, that
I would be a judge. Do not suppose I had no checks, and that there were
not occasional times when it appeared that one was being passed over. I
said, ‘Never mind the checks; I will go on, and I will get to the top,
if it is possible to do it!’ I recommend that to you all.”
SUCH IS FAME.
The great Napoleon, more than a year after he had become Emperor, tried
to find out if there was anyone in France who had never heard of him.
It was not long before he discovered a wood-cutter at Montmartre within
the walls of Paris, to whom the name of Napoleon was quite unknown,
and, more than that, the man was ignorant of the Revolution and had no
knowledge of the fact that Louis XVI. was dead.
Another anecdote showing equally well that the trumpet of fame does
not reach the ears of everybody was told by Mr. Roebuck in the course
of a speech made at Salisbury in 1852. He told his audience that when
he mentioned the recent death of the Duke of Wellington to a “shrewd
Hampshire labourer,” the man replied—
“I be very sorry for he. But who was he?”
KINDNESS AND COURAGE.
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.
A REAL FRIEND.—Account her your real friend who desires your good
rather than your good-will.
* * * * *
ANSWER TO TRIPLE ACROSTIC (p. 63).
(_Extra Christmas Part._)
1. E ver G ree N
2. L E A
3. I st H mi A
4. S o l A nu M
5. H u Z z A
6. A nd I ro N
Elisha—Gehazi—Naaman.
“OUR HERO.”
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the
Dower House,” etc.