...finding affordable art for our home

Since moving into our new house, one of the things we have found most tricky is finding pictures for our walls. I am a huge fan of Folksy, and have bought a few reasonably priced prints from there. There are also my beloved charity shops too, but original and beautiful artwork is very difficult to come by. So I've been trying to think of ways to get more pictures on the walls without breaking the bank.

Gem found this beautiful book at a house clearance shop. It is by Oliver G Pike and was printed in 1906. Gem googled him and found out that he was a famous wildlife photographer and Naturalist, so she was pretty chuffed with her find.
His photographs are stunning. Gem had the idea of getting prints of some of them and having them framed, so I asked if I could borrow it and experiment with getting some of the photographs photocopied rather than printed. The images have this ghostly quality to them (they are over 100 years old!), so I thought an enlarged photocopy would enhance that, and give them a sort of grainy finish. So yesterday I took the book down to my local photocopying place and a lovely lady scanned the image below for me and photocopied it to A1 size. I am delighted with how it came out, and it was really inexpensive.

The original image; 'Jay's Nest'

The end result! I can't wait to get a frame for it and hang it in our dining room. What was particularly cool about this creative venture was that the lovely lady in the photocopying shop is going to have a go doing the same thing with a photograph of her son surfing! I love that we are spreading the crafty love.

Maria x