Page:Embroidery and Fancy Work.djvu/301

Rh TO MAKE PICTURES OF BIRDS WITH THEIR NATURAL FEATHERS.

The following directions are taken from the "Family Friend" an English journal devoting much space to "fancy work."

First take a thin board or panel of deal or wainscot, well seasoned, that it may not shrink; then smoothly paste on it white paper, and let it dry, and if the wood casts its color through, paste on it another paper till perfectly white; let it stand till quite dry, and then get any bird you would represent, and draw its figure as exactly as possible on the papered panel (middle-sized birds are the best for the purpose); then paint what tree or ground-work you intend to set your bird upon, also its bill and legs, leaving the rest of the body to be covered with its own feathers. You must next prepare that part to be feathered by laying on thick gum arabic, dissolved in water; lay it on with a large camel's hair pencil, and let it dry; lay on successive coats, drying each one until you have a good body on the paper as thick, at least, as a twenty-five cent piece; let it dry quite hard.

Take the feathers off the bird as you use them, beginning at the tail and points of the wings, and working upwards to the head, observing to cover each part of your draught with the feathers taken from the same part of the bird, letting them fall over one another in the natural order. You must prepare your feathers by cutting off the downy parts that are about their stems, and the large feathers must have the insides of their shafts shaved off with a sharp knife, to make them lie flat; the quills of the wings must have their inner webs clipped off, so that in laying them the gum may hold them by their shafts. When you begin to lay them, take a pair of steel pliers to hold the feathers in, and have some gum-water, not too thin, and a large camel's hair pencil ready to