June 27, 2008

Grotesque Heads “Carved” from Pasteboard (Jun, 1934)

Filed under: General — @ 1:07 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1934
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Grotesque Heads “Carved” from Pasteboard
Masks and heads bearing a striking resemblance to the persons caricatured are “carved” from plain cardboard or tin sheet metal by a Polish sculptor and painter. Scissors and paper clips form his only tools in fashioning the grotesque figures which have attracted attention in European art circles and won him praise.

June 16, 2008

Sculptor Models Statue from Pulp (Jan, 1931)

Filed under: General — @ 8:45 pm
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1931
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What happens when it rains?

Sculptor Models Statue from Pulp

This life size statue of George Washington was modelled from pulp made of old newspapers by George W. Cook, shown with his creation above. The statue weighs 22 pounds.

March 1, 2008

AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON (Mar, 1924)

AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON

Adapting the airplane, locomotive, and automobile to motifs for religious frescoes, a French artist has achieved unique results in the decorations on the walls of the new church of St. Christopher, the patron saint of those engaged in hazardous occupations, recently completed in Paris. The figure of the saint is seen protecting a falling aviator, an engineer, and a speeding auto-ist. The machines, shown in detail, form the chief note in the designs and the imminence of danger is effectively suggested. The building has become known as the “sportsmen’s church,” and the novel decorations have caused wide comment.

February 9, 2008

USES PERISCOPE IN SKETCHING FISH (Aug, 1930)

Filed under: General — @ 12:17 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1930
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USES PERISCOPE IN SKETCHING FISH

The haunts of the marine underworld are an open book to Dorothy Beck, an amateur artist from Liver-more, California, who is sketching as many scenes of sea life as possible during her round-the-world trip. She has merely to place her big wooden periscope in the water in order to bring before her eyes a moving picture of activities of marine life. Her intention is to have upon her return to the United States a unique collection of pictures, showing the life of exotic fish that make their home in strange corners of the globe.

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January 14, 2008

Glass Artist (Oct, 1947)

Filed under: DIY — @ 4:18 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1947
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Glass Artist

For centuries the Hammesfahr family has been blowing rods of glass info wee objects of art.

BY LESTER DAVID

THE place is a Brooklyn workshop, the year, 1947. George Hammesfahr blows gently into the hollow glass rod and a wine-red bubble puffs slowly outward from the middle of the hot, pliable glass. The bubble grows, the deep red mellows into a soft vermilion as it presents a larger surface to the light. Deep inside the bubble a vision starts to take shape, a mind’s eye vision which only George can see. …

The place is a workshop in old Bohemia, back in the middle ages.

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January 12, 2008

Sculptor Turns Lard into Pigs (Mar, 1939)

Filed under: General — @ 12:55 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1939
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Sculptor Turns Lard into Pigs

With lard as his medium, a prominent Chicago sculptor, Charles Umlauf, recently executed one of his strangest commissions. The result of his labors was a piece of statuary from which a big pig and a little one grinned at visitors to an international livestock exhibition.

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December 3, 2007

Paint with Your Fingers, Find Your Hidden Neurosis (Feb, 1947)

Filed under: General — @ 12:33 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1947
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Paint with Your Fingers

You may not make masterpieces, but you’ll paint a picture of your hidden neurosis.

BY GOLD V. SANDERS

BECAUSE a clever school teacher invented a novel way to instruct her small pupils, psychiatrists now have a valuable new implement for ferreting out emotional disturbances and laying bare the innermost personality of the mentally ill.

Odd as it may seem, this important device is finger painting, the making of pictures by smearing paint on paper with fingers and hands. It was developed by Ruth Faison Shaw as a simple art form for children, but it turned out to be something far different and more potent.

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October 1, 2007

Sculptress Models Novel Desert Dwellings (Nov, 1934)

Filed under: Just Weird — @ 7:37 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1934
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Sculptress Models Novel Desert Dwellings

COMMISSIONED by a wealthy merchant of Tunis, Africa, to design an unusual house, a Czecho-Slovakian sculptress responded by incorporating giant facsimiles of the features of household members in the exterior of the dwelling.

The merchant has two daughters, a son-in-law and a grandson, all of whom are shown in mammoth relief in the lines of the unusual structure. The eyes and mouths of the huge figures serve as doors and windows”.

The unusual design was conceived by a Czecho-Slovakian artist, Mrs. Helen Zelezny.

September 19, 2007

Elkhorn Artist (Jun, 1953)

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Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1953
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Elkhorn Artist
THE world’s largest elk herd located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, supports an odd and lucrative business for Walt Floerke, a retired Chicago CPA. He gathers the massive antlers which are shed annually and turns them into interesting curios such as those shown here and sells them to tourists.

September 1, 2007

Glories of Mankind Told in Art-Glass Windows (Jan, 1924)

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Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1924
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Glories of Mankind Told in Art-Glass Windows

OF all conveniences met with in everyday life, glass is one of most ancient in origin. Authorities differ regarding its- beginning, but it is said to have been made by the Egyptians almost 8,000 years ago. And the coloring of it can be traced as far back as the remote eras of Chinese civilization.

Colored glass was first employed to make imitations of the brightly hued gems, such as rubies, sapphires, and emeralds with which the ancient nobles decked themselves and their horses in barbaric splendor. It was not until demand for the material to be used in flat subjects was born that it was rolled into sheets.

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July 16, 2007

Making Odd Masks Is New Hobby (Aug, 1933)

Filed under: DIY, Just Weird — @ 8:25 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1933
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Making Odd Masks Is New Hobby

MAKING masks of celebrities from unique materials is a new hobby for the artistically inclined. Below are shown two of the masks, one of George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish author, and the other of Greta Garbo, movie star. Mr. Shaw’s face is made from tin, his whiskers from brushes. Garbo’s hair is made from steel wool.

June 30, 2007

MURALS MAKE BEAVERS FEEL AT HOME (Jun, 1936)

Filed under: Other Animals — @ 12:33 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1936
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Wait. That’s a zoo? I thought it was the Alaskan wilderness!

MURALS MAKE BEAVERS FEEL AT HOME
Beavers in a den at the Belle Isle Zoo, in Detroit, Mich., now cavort amid scenes resembling their natural habitat. To minimize the artificial appearance of the surroundings, an artist reproduced a colorful forest panorama, complete with pine trees, scrub brush, streams, and lakes, upon the concrete walls of the open beaver pit. Visitors are attracted by the novelty of viewing the animals against a woodland background.

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