Linda Raedisch
It’s a wave! It’s a scroll! It’s a shell! It’s … rococo! The rococo decorative style prevailed in Europe for the first half of the eighteenth century, about the same time those Cathayan fairies from the previous project came into being. The name “rococo” comes from the French word rocaille, meaning “rockwork.” What is rockwork? I’m not sure, but it’s the shell, not the rock, that is the hallmark of the rococo. I adapted this one from a far more intricate design on a sandstone chimneypiece in an old Swedish manor house. The house, Sandemar, was actually built during the baroque (from Portuguese barroco “rough, uneven”), but like most old Swedish manor houses, Sandemar subsequently underwent the rococo before it was relieved by the altogether cleaner lines of the Gustavian.
August is the month when everyone seems to be making a last dash to the beach. It’s an especially poignant place at this time of year, when the sun is beginning to set just that little bit earlier and the crickets are increasing the tempo of their tunes. You can glue the following pattern to the lid of the box in which you keep all those shells and bits of shore glass you collected over the summer, or use the pattern to make invitations to a late summer gathering at your manor house overlooking the Baltic Sea.
Rococo Cut-Paper Shell
Cut paper is one of my favorite media. Here we achieve the look of tarnished, brushed-on gold by cutting out pieces of scantily painted paper and gluing them to a background of the same paper. The design as it appears here was drawn to fit on the front of a small card. You can reduce or enlarge it on a photocopier to meet your needs, but don’t reduce it too much or the scrolls will be too tricky to cut out.
Time frittered: About an hour per card, so if you’re using them as invitations, you might want to trim the guest list.
Cost: If you haven’t bought any of the starred supplies yet, this craft will run you about $25.00. But surely you’ve bought some of them already?
Supplies
Tracing paper*
Gold acrylic paint*
Craft knife* (optional)
Broad paint brush*
White all-purpose glue*
Smooth charcoal paper or light cardstock in either pale gray, pale blue, or pale pink.*
You will cut the shell from the same paper that you use for the background, so you only need one color. A sturdy white drawing paper will also do.
Fold and cut a portion of your paper to make a card. Set aside.
Lightly brush another portion of your paper (large enough to accommodate the shell) with the gold paint. Use a fairly dry brush and don’t worry about unevenness. You don’t want a solid coat of paint; you want the color of the paper to shine through. Set aside to dry.
Use a soft lead pencil to trace the shell design onto tracing paper. When the gold paper is completely dry, turn it gold-side down and transfer the design onto the blank side by tracing over the traced design again, pressing firmly with the pencil so the lines are transferred. Make sure the tracing paper is face down before you start!
Cut carefully along the pencil lines. Scissors are best, but you may want to use a craft knife for those pesky scrolls. Start with the central oval of the shell. Glue it onto your background (gold-side up, of course!) before cutting out the next piece. If you glue each piece on as soon as you’ve cut it out, you won’t have to worry about losing any little pieces—a real danger if you have cats.
When gluing the pieces down, don’t use so much glue that the paper gets soggy but do use enough that you can slide the piece around a little to get it into its proper position. Refer to the drawing to assure correct positioning. They should fit together quite easily, but do take care not to leave gaps and not to overlap.