Chinese Designs
Art Deco Designs
Halloween Designs
By Elaine Hill 

     Here are the next three entries in Search Press’s comprehensive Design Source Book series. Still only £4.95/$9.95 each for a 32 page book, it is possibly the cheapest way to give your craftwork a flavor of the period/season/design style of your choice. Elaine Hill knows how to fill a space well with an Art Nouveau influence, its writhing, whirling style making the most of hair, stems, smoke or water to resemble streamers and give movement to an otherwise static drawing.

     Though color will make the work look even better, it can be dispensed with and some black and white work is more than possible. As usual with this series, the designs are more suitable for people wanting to work fairly large (at least A5 size, most A4 size) and will be great for wall hangings, borders on walls, clothes/soft furnishings and glass paintings, but less effective on greetings cards or other small items. Most would look at their best even larger, but few would shrink convincingly and might merely look busy and too linear.

     As with all of this series, the buyer is free to use the designs for personal use or sell the items for charity, but these are NOT in the public domain, so no commercial use is permissible. Many of these designs would be at their best when used for school projects or other large public displays – the Halloween book in particular is particularly effective and would make any party look professional and impressive. The Art Deco book cries out to be used for glass painting (try it on a mirror) and the Chinese designs are more general.