Pin each tiny cleft down, or the dampness will curl your leaves and
spoil your picture. When all this is done, take a saucer a little more
than half full of hot water, rub your India ink in the water until" as thick
as thin cream ; place a newspaper beside you ; dip your brush very
lightly in the ink and spatter first upon the paper, and when the ink is
most rubbed off the sieve, spatter your picture. Do not be discouraged
if you do not see it grow black for many minutes, it will be all the
nicer; continue rubbing your brush on the sieve until it is perfectly
clean. Your best spatters are when you see no ink on the sieve.
After the leaves you put on last are sufficiently black, take off one at
a time and put immediately in pans for future use. Spatter the removal
SPATTER WORK. 341
of each leaf. Take off your shadows, one at a time, spatter. When
all shadows and outside leaves are off, and you have spattered last, take
off the cross, pin down the leaves that were under the pattern, spatter
till dark enough ; then take all off and spatter over the whole. Keep
the upper part of cross light. All leaves, etc., intended to be light,
must be left on till the last. The base of the cross should be very dark.
Look at the inside of your sieve often, that spray may not form drops
and blot your work. If you should blot it, or find large spatters, tear
off a small piece of blotting paper, dampen it, and touch the blot lightly
till all soaked up.
An Anchor is pretty with birds among the ferns. Also a harp> with
cupids, birds, etc.
Spatterwork can be made as fine as an engraving, and with care,
patience and good taste a beautiful picture can be produced. The
work when once commenced should never be left till completed. The
leaves will curl up after being dampened and the ink spoils in a few
hours.
To Make a Screen for Fire Place — First have the frame the right
size for the chimney, and then cover it with white domestic. Do the
spatterwork on coarse white Swiss, and then stretch it tightly over the
frame you have made. A pretty design is a scroll, surrounded with
leaves, clusters of grapes, etc., arranged according to the artistic taste
of the maker. Have little bunches of leaves and grapes in the four
corners. The effect of this on Swiss is beautiful.
For the Photographic Method — Cover a sheet of paper with a weak
solution of salt in water and some white of an egg well beaten ; after it
is dry, take it into a dark room, and with a tuft of cotton pass over it a
solution of nitrate of silver (fifty grains to an ounce of water) ; dry it in
the dark, and the chloride of silver formed on its surface will receive the
impression. Then arrange your ferns between two plates of glass, and
cut the paper to the same size as the glass plates ; place it under them
and expose to the sun in the same way as a photographer prints a por-
trait. Watch it until dark enough, and before removing the paper from
the glass take it into a dark room. Here place the picture in a solution
of hyposulphite of soda, which will dissolve the chloride of silver, but
leave the decomposed material (finely divided black silver), which forms
the black background, while the shadows of the leaves will be white.
342 SUMMER HINTS.
SUMMER HINTS.
THE ART OF KEEPING COOL.
Page 302
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Pin each tiny cleft down, or the dampness will curl your leaves and spoil your picture. When all this is done, take a saucer a little more than half full of hot water, rub your India ink in the water until as thick as thin cream ; place a newspaper beside you ; dip your brush very lightly in the ink and spatter first upon the paper, and when the ink is most rubbed off the sieve, spatter your picture. Do not be discouraged if you do not see it grow black for many minutes, it will be all the nicer; continue rubbing your brush on the sieve until it is perfectly clean. Your best spatters are when you see no ink on the sieve.
After the leaves you put on last are sufficiently black, take off one at a time and put immediately in pans for future use. Spatter the removal
SPATTER WORK. 341
of each leaf. Take off your shadows, one at a time, spatter. When all shadows and outside leaves are off, and you have spattered last, take off the cross, pin down the leaves that were under the pattern, spatter till dark enough ; then take all off and spatter over the whole. Keep the upper part of cross light. All leaves, etc., intended to be light, must be left on till the last. The base of the cross should be very dark. Look at the inside of your sieve often, that spray may not form drops and blot your work. If you should blot it, or find large spatters, tear off a small piece of blotting paper, dampen it, and touch the blot lightly till all soaked up.
An Anchor is pretty with birds among the ferns. Also a harp, with cupids, birds, etc.
Spatterwork can be made as fine as an engraving, and with care, patience and good taste a beautiful picture can be produced. The work when once commenced should never be left till completed. The leaves will curl up after being dampened and the ink spoils in a few hours.
To Make a Screen for Fire Place — First have the frame the right size for the chimney, and then cover it with white domestic. Do the spatterwork on coarse white Swiss, and then stretch it tightly over the frame you have made. A pretty design is a scroll, surrounded with leaves, clusters of grapes, etc., arranged according to the artistic taste of the maker. Have little bunches of leaves and grapes in the four corners. The effect of this on Swiss is beautiful.
For the Photographic Method — Cover a sheet of paper with a weak solution of salt in water and some white of an egg well beaten ; after it is dry, take it into a dark room, and with a tuft of cotton pass over it a solution of nitrate of silver (fifty grains to an ounce of water) ; dry it in the dark, and the chloride of silver formed on its surface will receive the impression. Then arrange your ferns between two plates of glass, and cut the paper to the same size as the glass plates ; place it under them and expose to the sun in the same way as a photographer prints a portrait. Watch it until dark enough, and before removing the paper from the glass take it into a dark room. Here place the picture in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, which will dissolve the chloride of silver, but leave the decomposed material (finely divided black silver), which forms the black background, while the shadows of the leaves will be white.
342 SUMMER HINTS.
SUMMER HINTS.
THE ART OF KEEPING COOL.