Free Art Download: 8 Vintage Patent Designs

These guys are after my heart with these.  Read the comments for some how to tips.

 

Images in the Harvard Collections

VIA is a catalog of visual resources at Harvard related to art, architecture, archeology, ethnography, and material culture. VIA includes information about slides, photographs, artwork, and artifacts in the University's libraries, museums, and archives.
I was interested in finding inspiration for chinoise style painted panels and searched for "Chinese illustration".

There are trade cards, daguerreotypes and Chinese rubbings in the collection.
I also found some very interesting designs with a search for "printed textiles"

Day of the week towels 1940

By Rodney Ruth

full set

I found and purchased this kitchen towel patented by Rodney Ruth April 2, 1940.
Click the pic to see it larger.

This is the very first time I've seen, in person, something from my design patent collection!
Thrilled to find it. So? How great is this?

American Beauties Online Exhibition at the Library of Congress

American Beauties Online Exhibition at the Library of Congress

My favorite are the unique "Fadeaway Girl"

Then from the American Art Archives
Coles Phillips and the Fade Away Lady
By Norm Platonic

1964 Embroidered Wall Piece

This wall piece really caught my eye. Unfortunately, there are no instructions but the leaflet description says that it is done with a full size tissue pattern of the embroidery which is basted to the base fabric then torn away. Click the pics for enlarged images.

Classical Persian Carpet Design

Pieces of a Puzzle: Classical Persian Carpet Fragments
Examples of fragments of 16th and 17th century Persian rugs, including "three principal surviving fragments of one spectacular 16th-century Khorasan rug [which] are reunited in this exhibition. ... These pieces also fit together like a puzzle, allowing us to glimpse the grand scale of the original carpet." Includes an overview of the Khorasan region (in modern Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan), diagrams of rug knotting techniques, and images of carpet fragments. From the Textile Museum.

Benita-Loca.com

French web magazine Benita-Loca "The Guide to Decorating Trends, colors, ideas and know-how". All I can say is Wow! There is a focus on painted furniture but tons of creative ideas of all sorts. Benita also offers downloads of images and stencils. Look at the top of the right sidebar. This is just one issue. Look at Former Numbers on the lavender bar for other issues.
Google English translation of the site

Earthenware decorations, 1836-1969

Patricia posted a link on Agence Eureka to a huge collection of Dutch ceramics in the Memory of the Netherlands hosted by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Design inspiration that goes beyond ceramics for me.

Recent posts on Agence Eureka have vintage paper cutouts and some wonderful decorative lettering. Patricia is simply one of my favorite bloggers.

Art Projects for Kids

Arounna Khounnoraj is a weekly guest at BloesemKids, showing us some great art projects you can do with your kids.
A couple of the projects are:
Eric Carle inspired collage

Shadow puppets

Marie Claire Maison

Marie Claire Maison magazine has a fantastic web site with more inspiration than I've seen in quite a long time. There are also decor and art videos, forums and blogs. I just clicked all over the header and sidebar sections. Visiting this site is a fun trip down a rabbit hole.
I have not had luck with getting Marie Claire sites to work through Google translator except for the forums and some of the blogs. I keep Google translator open in a new tab so I can copy and paste the text I want translated.
I really fell for this idea pictured below. The planks are drilled and stitched together with red string then mounted on metal sawhorses. It's the drilled and stitched wood idea that I like. Maybe it could work for room screens or a potting table outside stiched with colored, plastic covered wire.
The translated text is below. It's not perfect.

This table was designed last year at Christmas. Believing that work in his Paris apartment would be completed, Paola Navone had invited about twenty people. But on December 23, the furniture had not arrived… In a few minutes, she had the idea to the table: she collected five boards that were hanging on site. After quickly painted grey, it has been trouer randomly and has sewn together with red string (BHV). She asked the board thus constituted three metal trestles. All that remained was to draw up a table… for the feast.

The Craftsman magazine 1901-1916

Full facsimile copies of the Craftsman magazine edited by Gustav Stickley.

Hosted at the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin.

Reading these magazines gave me a good glimpse into the lifestyle and philosophy of the Craftsman movement.
The magazines explore home and building, arts and crafts, gardening and landscaping. They contain patterns and plans for homes, furniture and decorative arts.
This picture is of decorations for doorway drapes August 1903

Tape Sculpture by Joe Davidson

These are the beautiful works of Joe Davidson, made of Scotch tape. Don't they look like alabaster? I'm fascinated by tape sculpture; see my previous post about Mark Jenkins.

Found via the ever curious dear ada.
A fellow Oregonion with a great eye for design. Yes, it's amazing.

Floorcloth Design Source

While I'm thinking about floorcloths I want to share my best design source for rug designs. Google Patents has more patent designs than I will ever be able to explore.
Some search terms might help here.
Search with the word design and look in the list for patent numbers that have a capital D in front of the numerals.
Design for a rug, linoleum, Congoleum, oilcloth, Bigelow etc. One search term at a time.
Some of the designs from the 20's and 30's are surprisingly modern. Click the pictures above to be taken to those designs. If you are willing to dig there's a wealth of inspiration.

Floorcloth for the Fridge

Lisa, of Canvasworks Floorcloths, is making canvas refrigerator covers attached by magnetic sheet. This is such a cool concept, go see.

Found via Kim's Today's Creative Blog

Beer Can Butterflies

Paul Villinski's Beer Can Butterflies
These works of art are so beautiful. Go see.
found via materialicious

I can't help but wonder if all these butterflies were cut by a laser. The artist did attend Carnegie Mellon whose students are doing some very interesting DigiFab (digital fabrication) work.

Then another, not related site
Hermitdog's Beer Can Butterfly Tutorial

Doily Bowl

Quite a bit ago I saw this post on Inhabitat about these crystallizing salt doily bowls from The Home Project.

Crystallizing salt? What's that? Can I do it too?
I found this salt sculpture activity at the Exploratorium. It seems to be the right thing.
Make a supersaturated salt solution, put cotton string in and let the water evaporate. Sounds good but how to get the bowl shape? Put the doily between two bowls the same size and fill the void with the solution? Pin the doily to a plastic bowl, weight and submerse in solution? Place the doily over an overturned bowl placed in a tub and bathe with solution? I don't know but I want a couple of these for gift baskets and to hold glass ornaments for Christmas. That should be enough time to figure it out.

I have a new teacher

Amy Ybarra Murphy. Photographer, printmaker, art teacher, mother and crafter. Her blog, Craft Chi, is new to me but I have her on my Bloglines feeds now because she's very generous with her knowledge and posts tutorials for all types of crafts.
This picture is from her silicone caulk stamp making adventure.

Home by Sunset blog

Sunset magazine group blog by:
Jess Chamberlain, Sunset home writer
Irene Edwards, Sunset home and garden executive editor
Monica Ewing, Sunset senior designer

esprit cabane in English

English version of the French magazine esprit cabane is now online. Esprit cabane is a web magazine of crafty & green living ideas: free recycling projects, DIY decorating, non-toxic paint recipes, furnitures instructions, eco-friendly crafts...

They left a comment on my last post about the magazine telling me about the new English site. I post this in case you don't see the comment. Wasn't that nice of them?

esprit cabane

le magazine des idees creatives et ecologiques. Hey! We're creative, ecological and like ideas. This was a fun visit. Click the categories listed on the right and at the bottom of the pages click "page suivante" to see older posts in that category.
Lots of projects and patterns. Here are just a few that I've linked the picture to the project page.