A picture should first of all be worthy of a frame. It should express an ideal in human life, in nature, or in a man\u27s achievement

Hansen, Joanna M.

English

A picture should first of all be worthy of a frame. It should express an ideal in human life, in nature, or in a man's achievement.</p

Hansen, Joanna

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)

Christmas Party Ham or Chicken Mousse Scalloped Potatoes Perfection Salad Bread and Butter Sandwiches Ice Cream with Cherry Preserve Sauce Fruit Cake Turkish Delight and Turkish Mint Paste Coffee Nuts Small Popcorn Balls as Favors The formal buffet luncheon is one of the best methods of serving the people who call on New Year's day or it may even be used for a Christmas or New Year wedding. A large number may be quite easily served, seated about the liv-ing room and dining room. Two friends of the hostess sit at either end of the TI-lE lOW A HOMEMAKER table with the hot dishes and salad be-fore them. Rolls are placed at the back of the table and nuts and candies as the more attractive foods, to the front. Two or more waitresses take care of the plates as the hostess fills them. In this type a pile of warm plates, the silver, and napkins are placed on the serv-ing table. A waitress carries a plate to the friend who is serving, sets it before her and returns for another plate while the first is being filled. She takes up the filled plate from the left with her left hand and places the empty one with her right. She carries the filled plate to the service table, puts the necessary silver on it, places a napkin under it and car-ries it to a guest. Meantime the wait-ress working with her replaces the next filled plate with an empty one, carries it to the service table and so on llS before. The friends serving need to be as speedy as possible so that the service will not drag. When each guest has her plate, the rolls are passed. Then two other wait-resses come from the kitchen with water and glasses on a tray and supply the guests. When the rolls have been passed twice ,the dishes of food may be removed to the kitchen. In refilling water glasses, the waitress carries a folded napkin in her left hand to catch the drip from the pitcher. When the· guests are finished, the plates are carried to the kitchen two at a time (Continued on Page 19) The Art of Framing and Hanging Pictures By JOANNA M. HANSEN, Professor of Home Economics A PICTURE should first of all be worthy of a frame. It should ex-press an ideal in human life, in nature, or in a man's achievement. It should furthermore conform to the accepted standards of composition in line, mass, and color. Assuming that only good pictures are to be framed, the question of suitable frames and proper hanging are very im-portant. A picture requires a proper background. A wall is by structure flat in appearance, hence any paint, paper or textile, applied as a background, should give a flat appearance, even tho the tex-ture may be rough rather than smooth. A two-toned paper that has the appearance of flatness is permiss-able, but a figured paper is too spotty to. serve as a suttable background. It calls attention to itself rather than to the pi;cture. One must therefore choose to have plain walls and pic-tures or to have figured walls and do without pictures. T.he colors that serve best as backgrounds are creams, soft buffs, warm grays and gray greens. Strong dark colors such as browns, greens and blues ar e not so pleasing. Fortunately there has been a vast improvement in the selection of wall coverings, and in pictures and frames. There is, however, still much to be desired in this matter. First we have too many pictures. Our walls fairly groan with their weight. Our moldings are hung with a wide assortment of subjects made in too many kinds of mediums. Architecture, sculpture, landscape, portraits, interiors, figure composi-tions, and photographs cannot be hung promiscuously and still give the ap-pearance of unity to a room. ,Neither can oil paintings, water-oo)ors, 1 etchings, pastels, crayons, prints, chromas and calenders live to-gether amicably. They appear similar to a crowd all trying to secure your attention at once. Sufficient time and thought are not usually given to the study of a room in order to determine where• a picture is needed, and the size and shape best adapted to the space. The subject should be appropriate, and the color harmonious to the particular room under consideration. If it is for a Jiving room, the picture should make a general appeal since many people have access to this room. For this reason if for no other, and there are others, crayon portraits and photographs of the family or friends are not suitable for the living room, or other rooms for general use. If poor in ex-ecution, or if badly framed, they should be discarded. The originals of the cray-ons would no doubt ,if given the oppor-tunity to express themselves, prefer to· have their likenesses in a drawer, where they could be seen only when desired. A Good Grouping of Pictures Notice how the Pictures are Hung from the Moulding photo of one's father and mother or near relative may be framed in an artistic simple frame, that will look well on the desk of a private room. Quality rather than quantity should be considered in selecting pictures. It is far better to have but one fine picture rather than a number of mediocre prints. Since modern color reproduction is such an improvement over color litho-graphy of the past, pictures may be se-cured in colors very near the originals, as painted by the artist. These, if good reproductions, interpret the artist's idea to a fuller extent than can gray or browll( prints, which are better adapt-ed to architectural subjects. The general public is just beginning to see the possibilities of using a rug or picture as a basis for the color scheme of an entire room. The hang-ings, upholstery, table scarf, cushions or pieces of pottery may pick up a lit-tle of the color of a picture and reiJeat it so that a harmonious room may be secured. The color should however be used so that it is not at the expense of the quiet and repose of the room. The plain walls and woodwork about neutral in color, and of about the same value, need a color accent. As to the framing of a picture, much may be said. The right frame repeats the middle tone of the picture in value or in dark and light. The frame may be soft in color like the middle tone. One accustomed to the use of oil paints may stain a natural wood frame with a mixture made of oil paint and tur-pentine. After the stain is rubbed and dry, the frame may be waxed so as to secure a soft dull finish. Old frames, good in line an,d comparatively flat, may be sand papered and refinished. Wide moldings are best for pictures having strong color or rather large objects in them. Narrow ·moldings are best for pictures with small de-tails. Softl colors in moldings are necessary for pictures that are quiet or restful in subject. Mats should be used rarely. For a small picture, or for one that appears too light for a frame, a mat may be used of the same color as the medium tone in the picture. White or bright colors should neYel' be used since they are out of key with the print. • THE lOW A HOMEMAKER 5 A Japanese print may be framed close wall. Since the structural lines of the A fine oriental rug, a tapestry, a Paisley shawl, a piece of Chinese or Japanese embroidery or a modern textile in a narrow black moulding, or it may room are horizontal or vertical, the wires be mounted on a piece of silk which is or cords supporting the picture should interesting in texture and of a neutral be vertical. The triangle frequently color harmonious with the print. ·The formed by the picture wires and the silk needs to be first stretched over a point of support a:t the moulding is in-pasteboard. To paste the print upon the mount, place paste on the upper edge of , the print:J only and place it upon the silk may take the place of a picture. · For the college student, who has few framed pictures ,a well chosen magazine so that the top and side margins are about the same width, while the lower margin is wider. Then frame in a black or gray frame. A black moulding brings out the color .n a print and ties all of the colors to-gether. The gold frame which is dull and soft is almost neutral in color. The pol-ochrome frames of gold and colors are particularly good with some of the Ma-donnas or religious pictures by the old masters, but the bright gilt frame is· very trying to most pictures. Even oil paint-ings are frequently more beautiful in stained wood frames. A small line of gold or color around the inner edge of a moulding is sometimes good. In hanging pictures, the cen.ter of the picture should be on the average level of the eye, about five and one-half feet from the floor. Either the upper edge of the frames or the lower edges of the pictures should be on the same horizontal line-the same distance from the floor. Nothing is more unrestful than to see pictures placed in step-ladder style. If a small group of pictures is desired near a desk, they may be grouped so as to form a whole. The distance between pictures of a group, should be less than the width of the frame, so that they will not appear scattered. . The shape of the picture should con-form to the proportion of the wall space. A vertical picture is best in a long nar-row space, and a horizontal picture in a wide, iong space. The screw eyes should be placed high enough on the back of the frame so that the picture will hang flat against the Pictures in a Group Should not be Farther Apart Than the Width of the Frame correct. Use two picture hooks instead • illustration, fine in. color, may be well of one. The wire or cord may be at- mounted and attached. to the wall by tached to the picture hook, pulled thru means of a small piece of gummed paper the screw eye on one side of the picture, or cloth, without danger of marring the on thru the screw eye at the other side wall. A new print may be substituted and up to the other hook. The picture on the mount from time to time as de-can then be readily adjusted. Two sep- sired, but the note of color will add arate wires or cords may be used if pre- much to the appearance of the room, ferred, but the general effect will be the especially if the colors of the room re-same, peat the colors in the picture. Christmas Gifts From My Christmas P~int Shop T EMPTING SHOP window displays, have come to thrill us with the lur-ing charm of Christmas and before we know it we are wondering what we are going to give our frlends this Christmas. ti is not always a quest~on of what we woulq like to give, for sometimes we must decide on something quite inexpen-sive. It is fortunate that a gift which we make ourselves may show more original-ity and thotfu,lness and be just as at-tractive ;ts a gift which we can buy. For the last few weeks I have turned my room into a work shop and instead of presenting my friends with some bits of needlecraft, this year I shall surprise them with something from my paint shop. I am using enamelac paint, an air dry-ing enamel with a heavy body which makes the application of a second coat unnecessary. This paint drys quickly, is quite easily applied and is waterproof. It may be obtained in a variety of colors, but if one has had any experience in mix-ing paints it is only necessary to buy the primary colors-red, blue and yellow, and of course a large amount of black and By MILDRED ELDER white for the background. This paint may be obtained in different sized cans and is quite inexpensive. The first things I found to paint were some old fashioned cheese boxes that my grandmother had stowed away, and I wish you might see what clever little cookie boxes they are now. I painted four of them. One has an old blue back-ground with tiny little conventional flowers in bright colors, dotted around the sides and top in a promiscuous fash-ion. Another is of shiny black enamel with tiny little silhouettes of quaint old fa-shioned figures in ivory paint, which I am sure will please an aunt of mine. The other two boxes are almost alike and have daring black and white stripes up and down their sides and a top of shiny black with a little basket motif in the center. This black and white striped effect is very attractive for flower pots in the sun parlor or in the kitchen. An ordinary tin coffee can may be con-verted into a most attractive cookie box too and there are many lovely motifs which might be used on a background of grey, rose, green, and even bright yellow. One of these bright boxes will look very atractive in a fri!lnds room at boarding school or in a sister's guest room. I happened to find some very inexpen-sive trays in a little variety store and have decorated them also. The first one is round and is just the thing to serve lemonade on in the summer. I painted it with a background of ivory, bordered with a group of black lines in varying widths, and a novel Indian design in the center. The other tray is . a dull grey and just blends with mothers tea set so I shall give that to her to serve sand-wiches on at teas. The decoration on it is an artistic little group of conventional flowers in bright colors in the center with a tiny ivory band around the edge. It is not at all difficult to put these little designs on the boxes. The colored enamelac is opaque so it can be put right over the background paint, and will not show thru. 1f you are able to do free hand sketching, it will be easy for you to sketch the more simple designs with a 

The Art of Framing and Hanging Pictures

https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/bitstreams/77eecf85-6e74-4c17-ab2d-2c0536784fbf/download

The Art of Framing and Hanging Pictures

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)