74 DECORATIVE 



photographic cover design will always carry a good 

 value to a ready market. 



As the field is so wide, I can hardly 

 The Field attempt to more than hint at details and 

 methods. My own practice has been 

 rather large in extent, but limited in scope, and has 

 dealt mostly with my favorite motives of trees, flowers, 

 fruits and seeds. There is no reason whatever to feel, 

 so far as I can determine, that the same methods will 

 not bring success when applied in other lines and upon 

 other objects. Indeed, since I have found the really 

 exquisite beauty that resides in such prosaic subjects as 

 beans and peas, I should feel an assurance of fair suc- 

 cess in working out a design made with the free use 

 of clothes-pins or with railroad spikes. 

 _,. . , The frontispiece of this little book 



Discussion of j^ ^ color-design of the blue fringed 

 Examples . j ^i. c 



gentian, used upon the cover of a nur- 

 seryman's catalogue. The effect of the dainty flowers 

 is given in three printings, but it was enhanced 

 greatly by the decorative treatment. The flowers seem 

 to be on a panel, raised up by the simple device of 

 drawing shading lines on two edges, and this panel was 

 mounted on a piece of rough drawing board, so that 

 when the whole was photographically engraved the tex- 

 ture of the drawing board was shown on the otherwise 

 glossy and smooth cover. Thus the objectionable gloss 

 was simply removed, and the dainty elegance and 

 beauty of the flower properly set off. 



Decorative photography, by the way. 

 Artists' Errors damages artists' conventions, at times. 

 I have never been able to find any 

 artists' holly to photograph, for instance ; the real 

 thing is very different, and is sometimes hardly recog- 

 nized, although much more beautiful. Some years ago 

 I wanted a design to include that most strikingly 

 elegant and purely American plant, the common maize, 

 or Indian corn. A very competent and usually suc- 

 cessful designer brought me a sketch showing ears of 

 corn growing from the ends of the great stalks, and, 

 when I remonstrated with him, he declared that he 

 could find no authoritative corn photograph or picture 



