First, a bit of history. The Arts and Crafts movement first appeared in England in the second half of the 1800’s. It was set up as a reaction against the industrial revolution and mainly the poor designs caused by mass production. The founder of the movement was William Morris together with his business partner Philip Webb. They and others became known around the world for their designs for fabrics and wallpaper. Their success remains today – their designs still attract a (financial) premium.
Coming up to date – I am now a volunteer guide in the only remaining home designed by Phillip Webb – Standen House - now maintained by the National Trust.
The company – Morris & Co still exists today and from the 1st of June will be taking over the house for a big exhibition showing how nature in the form of plants and animals – mainly birds – influenced Morris & Co’s patterns. While most of the exhibition will be organised by Morris & Co, the staff at the house will have an input and mine will be ….. birds.
So far I have made 17 birds and plan just two more – unless the organisers think otherwise. The idea is for all the birds to be made with Morris patterns, which causes interesting problems. My first job was to find blank templates of birds. Google found me a company who sell three birds in different flying positions. I remembered that Pera Models had a lot of simple kits and to my surprise they have a wide variety of blank templates. I made many photocopies of wallpapers then printed the templates on the reverse. This caused two more problems – all my folds had to be reversed so all Valleys became hills and vice versa. Also, due to the randomness of the patters I have no references to line up the joins, although hours of “practice” made life easier.
The Pera Birds will form a “spotting trail” round the house for kids and the bigger birds will be part of a separate display.
A few days ago I was asked if I could make a few bugs. So far I’ve made a ladybird from Canon (A few weeks ago the house was infested with the real thing) and a couple of beetles. I’m still looking for bugs, so any web pages would be helpful – it will save time searching, leaving me more time to make more “wildlife” ;-)
I found the big birds here
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/5398...ctive_10&pro=1
The Pera birds are here.
Peramodel samples.
The beetles came from
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The first picture is a kids jigsaw using Morris's first wall paper and the house.
Small birds will follow
Cheers
Mike