POSTAGE STAMP, PICTURES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 20

POSTAGE STAMP, PICTURES

Wet afternoons often'• need 'filling: with an indoor occupation. An amusing one, .which calls for no expenditure of anything but,some ingenuity and invention, is making postage , stamp pictures. Every post brings in some of these little pieces of gay paper and a pair of scissors and a pot of paste are all that is needed to start picture-making. A piece of card—an old postcard will rjo—will ' make -the foundation. A search in the waste-paper basket will provide from the mass of advertisements which usually fill that receptacle some coloured paper with which to cover the card. If the artist wants to make a landscape, some lightblue paper makes the \ best' background; '"• For :a1 -bunch of/flowers, which-is a good thing" to start upon, a pale; yellow paper is as good .as any and is sure 7 to. be found in the basket. Part of the fun is to use only the stamps and papers you have at hand and see what you can do with them. ' For flowers take a blue stamp. They come.on many letters from, abroad. Austria arid Germany' provide bright ones. Cut this into the , shape; of a vase or pot-and: stick it near the bottom of the,card. -Then with a pen or pencil—coloured chalk is good—draw some stems branching from the pot. This done, you have plenty of fun in making your flower bunch. The/ green halfpenny stamps make the leaves. With foreign stamps you can make different tints of green. Cut out leaves of different, shapes and stick them on. ' ; When the leaves are on you come to the flowers. Here you can " find all kinds of reds, from pink to scarlet. The pattern on the stamp makes a nice variety-in the colour. Even the postmarks are useful as. shading. Good yellows and purples can be found, especially among foreign stamps. A red daisy with .a circle of yellow in the middle is effective. '< Once started, you will be surprised at the varieties that can be found. And you label the picture "Stampa Multiflora" if you wish to. give it a scientific name. ~ , i .. .. Landscapes can be constructed. The foliage is made of different green stamps. The heavily-postmarked .ones are useful-for this. : And the tree can be covered with-red apples. As suggestions,for.subjects'may be mentioned a brown boat with a yellow sail on a blue sea; red fish in a pale green' sea * with dark green" seaweed.Best,, ; of all is to' experiment and see what the stamps suggest. Stamp pictures may be made on little boxes or may decorate trays. In this case they . should be sized and varnished. They can also be used to fill up odd "corners in the scrap-books that are so welcome in the children's hospitals. ,-, : .,.,-,.:, „.„,„;,.,..i,...,,,,...i,....