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Showing posts with label illustration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illustration. Show all posts

Friday, September 23, 2011

More 1917 bird illustrations

More vintage bird illustrations from The Nature Library, first published in 1917 with illustrations by R.E. Todhunter.

Cardinals
(female on left, male on right)



Tree Swallows
(male on branch, female flying)



Swallows


Cedar Waxwing

Coming soon: more birds, more vintage ladies, and some vintage butterfly illustrations.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

1917 bird illustrations

I love to support local libraries, so I always try to attend Friends of the Library  sales. At the Fall sale this week, I found some treasures, including wonderful vintage books from a set called The Nature Library.  My favorite is the volume on birds, with beautiful illustrations by R. E. Todhunter.  Here are a few of the illustrations for you.  (As always, personal use only, not for sale individually or in collections.)

Hummingbirds

Bluejay

Mockingbird

Barn owl

Click twice on the images to download the largest size. 

If you like these, let me know and I'll post some more soon!

Monday, August 8, 2011

1927 ad: Grandmother is still dancing!

A 1927 issue of Pictorial Review featured this lovely illustration by Corinne Dillon in a full-page ad for... I'm going to give you a minute to guess.


I love the ladies' bobbed hairdos and Flapper dresses -- wonderful examples of 1920s fashions.




The ad title is "Grandmother is still dancing," and the ad copy begins like this:


Grandmother is no longer a bored spectator at the dance. No more does she decorate the side walls, wishing the party would end. No, indeed! 


At the first note of the music she is right out on the floor. There she stays throughout the evening, doing the very latest steps. And she's just as reluctant as anyone else to hear the music of the last dance fading away.


Of course, there's a secret about her enduring vitality -- a simple secret she's perfectly willing to pass along.


Blog readers, can you guess the secret?


Her secret, it turns out, is Feen-a-Mint, the chewing laxative.  And you thought something like arthritis medicine might be the secret to an evening of dancing!


Corinne Boyd Dillon, a Kentucky-born artist was a very busy illustrator in those days. Her artwork was in most of the national magazines of the day, as well as many children's books and novels. I wonder how she felt about creating this beautiful art for a laxative advertisement... I guess it helped pay the bills!


Feen-a-Mint, incidentally, resembled Chiclets and its box warns that it is "A medicine, not a confection."


Keep dancing!

Friday, July 15, 2011

More lovely ladies on bridge tallies

These lovely ladies are from an undated bridge set published by Charles S. Clark Co.  The larger images are from the diecut covers of bridge score pads, and the small round images are individual bridge tallies. The tallies had decorative fringed ties through the holes -- very fancy!


Text inside the scorepads refers to progressive auction bridge (which was originated in 1904), and mentions that "Some prefer to play by the new laws of progressive auction bridge," which may have changed in 1927 after the creation of the American Contract Bridge League.  (If there are any bridge history experts out there, please correct me if this is not the case!)


I'm just enthralled with the artwork!  I hope you like it, too.





As always, click on any image to enlarge it, then right click on the enlarged image to save it to your computer. 


I'd love to see any projects that use the vintage images shared here. Please send pictures of your work if you've created something with these.


Working on art projects indoors is a good way to keep cool in this heat wave.
Happy creating!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Vintage images for Father's Day

Searching for masculine vintage images to use on Father's Day cards or projects, I was surprised to discover that most ads in my vintage magazines were directed at women.  The bicycle, boat and electric train ads below were exceptions.  My favorite "Father" images are these, from a 1937 reader called "At Work and Play."




Ads below are from an 1897 edition of The Cosmopolitan magazine.





If you make a Father's Day card using any of these images, please send us a link or a photo!  Happy Father's Day.