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 glass 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.
[Illustration: By Clark H. Rutter. FIG. 111.--FRIEND OR FOE.]