Botanical illustration without the drawing

A page from the Observer's book

Out on a cycle ride the other day the kids and I were trying to identify some of the flowers springing up in the hedgerows using "The Observer's Book of British Wild Flowers". It was my mother-in-law's book and has an inscription dated 1948 in it. It is full of small but beautiful illustrations.

I love this kind of botanical illustration and was reminded of my attempts to recreate "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" (Edith Holden) back when I was about twelve.

My attempts failed at the first page when I realised that neither my artistic talents nor my handwriting were going to produce anything resembling the charm of said book.

Project shelved.


Thirty odd years later and I was wondering whether technology could help the less able artists among us (including my own children) produce a nature diary incorporating a bit of the charm of Edith Holden's diary. Here is one of our efforts of a forget-me-not from the garden.

Our modern botanical print

And here is how it was done. You will need:
- Sugar Paper (yellowish to look like parchment)
- A source of small flowers
- Paper glue
- Plastic tweezers (optional)
- Scanner, computer and image editing software

1. Pick a flower as low down as possible so as to include the leaves.
2. Spread paper glue thinly onto an area of the sugar paper roughly the size of the flower to be stuck down.
3. Carefully stick the flower and leaves onto the glue. A pair of plastic tweezers is useful here. Wait for glue to dry.
4. Place picture in scanner. Scan and import into image editing software (we used GIMP which is free).
5. Crop and add a caption using a font that looks like old fashioned script.
6. Print and stick into your nature diary / scrapbook.

I'm really pleased with the results and it's a good alternative to flower pressing.

A page from Edith Holden's diary

Something to aim for? Not sure how we are going to get the butterflies under the scanner though!

REMEMBER If you are picking flowers in the wild, only pick flowers of commoner species. It is the flowers that produce seeds and without seeds there can be no future generation of flowers. Widespread picking of flowers seriously threatens seed production. Many wild plants are protected species because of their rarity. It is an offence to pick any of these.

Anamorphism - a Victorian ICT activity

Anamorphoscopes such as this were popular nineteenth century toys. I first came across them on this TV programme (CR-8) and thought that this idea would make an interesting ICT club activity.

The software they are using is called Anamorph Me; it is simple to use and is free.

Mirror card is available in craft shops and works well for this activity but the best material I have found is sticky back mirror film. This is available on ebay in A4 sheets and also in rolls; more economical if you are working with a large group of children.

If you would like to try this either in an ICT club or at home then I have written the following anamorphoscope activity sheet which is aimed at children. To make the cylindrical mirrors I wrapped the sticky mirror film around empty kitchen and toilet rolls.

There is a commercially available craft kit aimed at children which explores the use of the anamorphoscope:

Morph-o-scopes by Ooz and Oz. The site includes a child friendly history of the technique.


And the following books are all worth a look:

“Victorian Kinetic Toys and How to Make Them” by Philip and Caroline Freeman Sayer includes a section on anamorphoscopes. The book is out of print; try amazon’s marketplace sellers for a copy.

“The Magic Mirror: An Antique Optical Toy” by the McLoughlin Bros has reproductions of Victorian images that can be used directly with your homemade anamorphoscope.

“The Magic Cylinder Book: Hidden Pictures to Colour and Discover” by Ivan Moscovich is aimed specifically at kids and includes a template to create your own images.

Egyptian Day - an easy costume

Themed days at school, don't you just love them?  I swear I had only just packed away the Victorian costume (cut up school trousers, checked shirt and charity shop jacket) and there we were again, Egyptian Day. A quick search on google and it became apparent that your average ancient Egyptian didn't actually wear a lot (well it was quite hot I suppose). Perfect dressing up idea for a cold day in January then.

My son doesn't particularly like dressing up, but equally he doesn't like turning up in his normal uniform on a themed day. I needed something that he could just fit in with but without being too over the top. So here's my simple (hardly any sewing) but effective outfit to suit your average Egyptian.

Instructions

Skirt
I started with a standard sized, white pillow case (measuring approximately 70cm by 45cm) and cut it into two pieces. The smaller part (length 21cm), was at the open end and included the flap that you tuck your pillow into - this became the head gear. The larger part was 49cm long and became the 'skirt'; I cut open the closed end.

Collar design from www.fashion-era.com

To make the skirt, I printed this lotus flower design onto iron on transfer paper. The design is from www.fashion-era.com, which has a very interesting section on Egyptian fashion and some great costume ideas.

I adjusted the size and lengthened the pattern in free image editing software (GIMP). The paper I used was from HP as I have found this to be very easy to peel the backing from.

I ironed the transfer paper onto one end of the pillow case, removed the backing paper and then cut carefully along the bottom so that the design formed the 'hem'. The iron on paper had the added advantage of stopping the material from fraying and so there was no need to make a proper hem.

At the other end I made a simple waistband by sewing over a flap of material and threading a piece of elastic through. All done.

The hem of the skirt. Some of the paper backing still needed to be removed; I had used some older, cheaper paper  for that part. I have never had this problem with paper from HP.

Top

This was a cheap white t-shirt with the addition of some iron on lotus flowers, as for the skirt. Around the collar required some manipulation in GIMP to curve the image.

Head Gear
I wasn't originally going to bother with this, but by cutting the top off the pillow case I noticed that it lent itself perfectly to the job. I cut through the non flap side (straight through the middle) to form the two side pieces. I then stuck my son's head in the original flap and fashioned it into the head gear you see in the picture. It required securing with a few stitches. And finally some more iron on transfers were added.

Final Touches
I added an old belt of mine which required cutting to length. The cut piece was fashioned into a wrist band. And my daughter insisted on adding some eyeliner, which lasted long enough for the photo!

This is not the first time I have used t-shirt transfer paper for a kids' project. Check out details of making felt boards for very young children at my website.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Happy Chinese New Year

Here is a video that some 10 year olds made when I helped  out in an ICT club. It was made with an old Intel Play Camera (Digital Blue) using a form of stop motion known as paper cutout. For more ideas on this kind of animation see my website.

ZU3D - brilliant animation software

If, like me, you have been waiting for something to replace your ageing copy of Digital Blue's rather horrible Movie Creator software, then look no further. ZU3D version 3 has arrived and after a couple of days of playing around with it I am smitten.

I've had the original version for a while and my 10 year old son has found it very easy to use. I was always impressed with the friendly interface and the simplicity, but for me there were a few things missing in the original version; I frequently found myself using other software in addition. But not any longer!

The developers have managed to maintain the simple interface but have added so many more features (live video, time lapse, chroma key, multiple time lines to name but a few). You can even draw animations or import animated gifs which makes creating your own special effects a real possibility.

An exploding meerkat courtesy of ZU3D

So, now you can do stop motion, live video, and 'movie maker style' editing all in one package just like you could (ish) with the Digital Blue software - except ZU3D does it all so much better.

Do your school or your home a favour and check out the website. I only have the software, but their animation kit including camera, software, sets, green screen and plasticine looks like a good deal to me.

Time-lapse video of a crystal growing kit

This is a  great little video project for kids using a crystal growing kit. The one we used was called Shangri-La and came from John Lewis a while ago, but there are plenty of similar kits around. As well as the kit, you will need a webcam, time lapse software and video editing software (we used free software).

Magic Garden - just one example of many crystal growing kits available

All you need to do is assemble the kit, setup your camera and software, pour on the special liquids and leave for about 10 hours.

Once the wait is over, import the photos into the video editing software, edit, save and play.

For this one, we used the Microsoft Lifecam Studio webcam, Yawcam software (free) and Windows Live Movie Maker. Instructions for using Yawcam can be found on my website here. Movie Maker is a free download for Windows 7 and is very simple to use. Earlier versions of Windows shipped with (imho) a better but more complicated version of Movie Maker. I will be adding more time lapse ideas to my website soon.

Microsoft LifeCam - first impressions

Sometime ago I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately this meant a lot of old stuff (software and hardware) no longer worked. This included my 'trusty' digital blue camera and an ancient Logitech webcam. I have, at last, got around to buying a new webcam - the Microsoft LifeCam Studio Full HD 1080p.

I was mostly looking for a camera that I could use for stop motion animation projects with the children. In particular it needed to be easily mounted face down, preferably on a tripod. This narrowed the choice down somewhat as I could only find two easily available webcams with tripod mountings - the Microsoft Lifecam and one made by Logitech.

First impressions? Very very impressed!

Good build quality. Good USB cable length. Decent stand for placing on a desktop to film an animation. Mounts well on a tripod and on the table-top mount I used for the digital blue. Great picture quality. Decent amount of control from the supplied software (focus, brightness, zoom, white balance etc.) which means minimal movement of the actual camera during filming. I am looking forward to getting stuck into some projects with the kids, but in the meantime here is a quick lightbox animation test with the Lifecam and ZU3D software:

I need to work on the flickering (think that is the auto white balance or auto focus) but otherwise very happy.

I have also discovered an added bonus with this camera. It fits perfectly on to my Natural History Museum Microscope. If you are not familiar with this excellent (and cheap) piece of kit then I urge you to take a look at the reviews (I was the first Amazon reviewer, back in August 2008 and there are a number of my photos in the customer images). I had previously tried some video with it, by taping my old webcam to the top with ok results. But the lifecam could have been made for this microscope. It sits (and balances) perfectly on top and once positioned can be controlled entirely from the PC. On discovering this, I rushed out into the garden to grab some unsuspecting minibeast to stick under the lens - a young (and transparent) earthworm was my victim:

Not the most exciting of creatures but you get the idea of the possibilities for this combination. Btw, the circular viewing area was only about 7mm in diameter - this worm was tiny.

A couple of snapshots of the Lifecam Studio software showing the extent of the control you have:

Not the cheapest of webcams, but currently on sale at under £50 on amazon. I thoroughly recommend it.