Friday, April 15, 2022

Life of Christ Stereo Cards--Good Friday Part 2

 




Here are some more stereo cards for Good Friday. These correspond to Stations of the Cross seven through eleven. Earlier cards in the same set can be found here, here, and here










Life of Christ Stereo Cards--Good Friday Part 1




A disproportionate number of the cards from the colorful twenty-four-card Life of Christ set I found are related to Good Friday. The numbers printed on the cards themselves don't make much sense to me, so I numbered them in chronological order from the Nativity to the Ascension, with the Stations of the Cross in their traditional order inside that. But I thought it might be hard for some internet connections to load all fourteen of those in a single post, so I decided to split them up. The first one was actually posted yesterday, so these five cards correspond to stations two through six. Earlier cards from this set can be found here and here






Thursday, April 14, 2022

Life of Christ Stereo Cards--Judas Betraying Christ and Jesus Condemned to Death

 



Since today is Maundy Thursday, I'm sharing a couple more of the stereo cards from this set. The second one is technically more appropriate to the early morning of Good Friday, but since there are plenty of Good Friday cards I thought I'd put this one here. These were also in good shape and only needed to be given a frame in Photoshop. 




Here is a link to the card I posted earlier, for Palm Sunday.

Monday, April 11, 2022

Life of Christ Stereo Cards--Jesus Entering Jerusalem



Since today is Palm Sunday, I thought it would be an appropriate time to share this stereoscope card. I bought a whole set of these on eBay--twenty-four in all--and while mine are not dated, I have seen otherwise identical cards with a 1925 copyright date. This particular card was in lovely shape, so all I needed to do in Photoshop was add a frame to get it ready for my Google Cardboard viewer.

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Pipe Cleaner People

 


My husband was sorting things in the garage recently and ran across my collection of pipe cleaner people. I hadn't seen these since the last time we moved and was quite happy to have them back; I wasn't completely sure they hadn't been thrown out by mistake. The oldest of these, the Madonna and Child figure at the top left, was one of several I made with different-colored outfits as decorative gifts for Christmas 2008. The others were made at various times between 2013 and 2018 and are intended to be gently posed and played with. I do like constructing things with pipe cleaners--though the correct thing to call them nowadays is chenille sticks, since they are sold as craft supplies and I've never known anybody to actually use them to clean pipes. Anyway, they are colorful and don't stain things or break if they are dropped or grabbed by a toddler and thrown across the room.



I must have run out of chenille sticks in the middle of a project, since there was the beginning of another mermaid figure in the same basket. I'll have to see if I can get matching pipe cleaners and finish it.



And this little critter was there, too. My son was impressed by the fanciful toy figures I'd been creating and asked me to make him a praying mantis, but since I was running out of green pipe cleaners its head and body are red. 

Monday, February 21, 2022

Stereo Card Recolor--Rock of Ages: The Rescue (1896)

 



Here's the other 1896 stereo card I bought on eBay along with The Resurrection. It's titled "Rock of Ages--The Rescue," and I love its dramatic allegory. It was originally in sepia, of course, but I thought the ocean scene would be beautiful in color. Trying to match both sides of the water splashes was really tricky, but eventually I got them close enough for 3D viewing. I also added some blank space to the edges to help my Google Cardboard viewer focus on it correctly.

I think this card was intended to be part of a set with two other cards called "Rock of Ages--The Wreck" and "Rock of Ages--The Ascension," but it's hard to find specific information. There are at least two versions of each card; I like this 1896 one better than the 1875 version I found a scan of here. Actually, when I tried to look these up I found a dizzying variety of related artwork--everything from paintings to tattoos to a music album cover, dated any time between the late 1860s and, well, right now. There is an interesting explanation of the original painting's history here, on what appears to be a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan site. 

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Stereo Card Recolor--The Resurrection (1896)

 



I bought a couple of antique stereograph cards on eBay the other day, and since they were sepia-toned I thought it would be fun to try recoloring them. This card is titled "The Resurrection" and was originally published in 1896. Since it has a lot of details in the background, I decided to leave most of that sepia and only decorate the central figure and the palm branches at the top. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It's better in 3D, of course; I view these on my smartphone using a Google Cardboard headset. It's not necessary to use a phone that will actually run Google Cardboard, either--all the phone needs to be capable of is showing a picture full screen and in landscape mode. Theoretically it should also be possible to print this out at the correct size and view it in an old-fashioned stereoscope, but since I don't own a real stereoscope I have not tried that.