Paper Decorative and ornamental Designs.
Year: 1884

page_text: Paper Decorative and ornamental Designs.
I, WILLIAM WATSON of 33 Hayburn Crescent, Partick, Glasgow, in the County
of Lanark, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of my invention for IMPROVE-
MENTS IN DECORATIVE AND ORNAMENTAL DESIGNS, to be as follows:-
My invention relates to the composition, production, or manufacture of novel
decorative and ornamental designs, in or on various fabrics or material.
The object of my invention is to form a new manufacture, to which I have given
the name of, "Micrographic Art Work."
"
The processes and subjects hitherto made use of for designing, drawing or
making decorative and ornamental designs, have been confined to the use or
application of all the various objects, or their forms, or colours, which are visible
to the naked eye only; or to the use of the various conceptions of the imagination,
or to the combination multiplication or arrangement of these with each other to
form designs for the purpose of decorating different materials.
Instead of using these subjects, or following these methods hitherto adopted;
I take a microscope, or magnifying lens, solar microscope, or micro-photographic
apparatus, and I magnify or enlarge any of those natural objects, or parts of
natural objects in organic or inorganic nature, of which the whole, or the details,
or the constructive parts are invisible to the naked or unassisted eye, and having
enlarged or magnified these microscopic objects to any visible or enlarged scale
suitably adapted for the purpose, I then reproduce or manufacture them, or
multiplications, combinations, or arrangements of them with each other, or com-
binations of them with the ordinary forms and subjects of design, in colours,
metals, wood, cloth, paper, leather, glass clay or other material; by the usual
processes of painting, casting, carving, weaving, printing, embossing, engraving,
chasing, enamelling, or any other well-known process applicable to the working
of the material in which these designs are to be produced.

page_text: Improvements in Decorative and Ornamental Designs.
I, WILLIAM WATSON, 33 Hayburn Crescent, Partick, Glasgow, in the County of
Lanark, Engineer (and Chemist,) do hereby declare the nature of my invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN DECORATIVE AND ORNAMENTAL DESIGNS
"and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement:—
Hitherto the objects of the invisible world, disclosed by the microscope, have
only been viewed or studied in those beautiful but tinuous forms, there pictured
by the rays of light; or been portrayed in microscopical books for purposes of
explanation or illustration; no part of the infinite treasure of symmetrical
structure, and delicacy of form, colour and outline, or of the wonderful phenomena
or metamorphosis there displayed has been yet applied to ornamental or decorative
purposes, in the arts or manufactures.
My invention consists in the production of novel and useful, superficial, releif,
or configurative designs, in or on various fabrics or material by the application in
an enlarged manner, and in the herein specified modes of colouring, extension, and
combination; of the forms, structures, outlines, colours, phenomena and appearances,
of any of those objects, or parts of objects, belonging to the animal, vegetable or
mineral kingdom, which are almost or wholly invisible to the unassisted eye, but
revealed by the microscope; to general purposes of ornament or decoration, in or
on all kinds of articles or fabrics and material to which ornamental or decorative
forms or designs can be applied. The object of my invention is to apply the
forms, minute details, and colours of invisible nature to novel purposes, and to
approximately shew or elucidate them, in a useful and enlarged or tangible manner,
and thus form a new manufacture, to which I give the name of "Micrographic Art
Work,"
Before ornamenting or decorating fabrics or material in superficial, releif, or
configurative forms or designs of a permanent character by suitably adapted
processes; I require temporary working drawings, illustrations designs, or proto-
types, which I construct or obtain in the following manner, viz., I copy and make
use of any enlarged drawings, engravings, or photographs of microscopic objects,
which have been already produced for purposes of illustrative explanation; and,
also, by means of either a compound achromatic microscope (furnished with the
usual eyepieces, condenser, polariscope, selenite stage, micro-spectroscope and
micrometer,) or a solar or oxy-hydrogen microscope, or a simple microscope,
according to the desired scale of enlargement; or whether minute details of form
and colour, or a general view is required; I magnify any extremely small or invisible
object, objects, or part of an object, or the invisible minutiae of any visible object,
as they exist in their natural state; or as varied in appearance by any of the usual
media used in mounting, or by the action of any of the ordinary histological or
micro-chemical re-agents; and I copy in an exact or approximate manner on paper,
by the usual modes of drawing and painting, assisted as required by a properly
adapted camera lucida; the magnified or enlarged pictures, as delineated by either
reflected, transmitted, oblique, condensed, or polarized light; or, I take enlarged

page_text: photographs of the objects in the usual manner. I obtain by any of these way's
magnified copies, which I may still further enlarge to any required scale or size;
of interesting objects, or parts of objects, such as, insects; animalculæ ; infusoria ;
zoophytes; parasites; the antinnæ, eggs, elytra, exuviæ, eyes, feet, heads, larvæ,
proboscis, scales, and wings of insects; parts of the hair, skin, bone, and blood of
animals; cellular and vascular tissue, seeds, hairs and pollen of vegetables; sections
of woods, fossils, and shells; spectra; polariscopic colours of crystals; copies of
phenomena, such as, the motion and action of insects and animalculæ, and the
alternation of generations; and the invisible structural details and appearances of
any kind of animal, plant, or mineral. These copies reproduced for purposes of
decoration, in a superficial, releif or configurative manner, in or on any kind of fabric
or material, in their true colour, outline, or shape, or either of them; are the most
exact kind of micrographic ornament; but I also alter, combine, and colour them
to form working drawings or designs in the following principal ways; I extend the
structural outlines of any object, or part of an object, by multiplication or repetition,
such as, the network lines of scales, sections, and shells, cullular and vascular
tissue; so as to cover any required extent of surface: I combine in one design,
different objects, or parts of objects, in any conceivable or required arrangement;
or in accordance with the recognised principles of harmonious and proportionate
design I magnify separately on an equal scale, the several parts of any large
object, such as an animal, flower, petal, leaf, feather, or shell; and then unite them
to form a complete copy of the object, which shews the invisible details on an
enlarged scale: I also combine in any conceivable manner, magnified objects or
parts of them, with any of the ordinary visible subjects, geometrical, or imaginative
forms, hitherto used for decoration or ornament: instead of representing objects or
parts of them, in their true or apparent colours only, as shewn in the microscope,
I also colour or illuminate them in any kind of ink, dye, pigment or metallic
bronze: I carve, mould, or model, releif or configurative designs in wood, gypsum,
plastic clay, or other suitable material, from the shapes or outlines of any of the
before mentioned objects or designs; and to permit a configurative design to be
usefully as well as ornamentally applied, I modify or alter it to suit a special purpose
without destroying its contour in any marked degree; as, for instance, to allow a
metallic cheese-mite to serve as a scarf pin, a pin would be attached to it; a still
larger mite in stoneware could be made hollow, and have a hole in part of it, to
serve as an ink bottle; one on a larger scale again could be parted horizontally to
make a box or covered dish; a metallic spider's foot, could have a frame-ring and
pin attached, to make it a brooch.
Any or all of these designs may also be partly combined with each other, to
form various kinds of compound designs.
Having formed or obtained my working drawings or designs in any of these
specified ways, I transfer or reproduce them in a permanent manner, in or on
different fabrics or material, by any well-known process, such as painting, casting,
carving, weaving, printing, photographing, embossing, engraving, chasing &c.,
applicable to the working of the fabrics or inaterial in or on which these ornamen al
designs are to be produced. Some forms of the designs may be more particularly
adapted or applied to certain special purposes, as, for example, writing papers may
be slightly embossed, waterlined, or faintly coloured in extended representations
of the delicate meshes or network, and variegated lines shewn in cellular and
vascular tissue, scales, and sections of woods, fossils, and shells; leather for bags,
purses, bookcovers, &c., may also be embossed or impressed with similar designs;
lace and net may be wrought in the same designs; decorative papers, such as wall
papers, Christmas cards, albums, scraps, playing cards, &c., may be ornamented with
polariscope objects, and illuminated designs; dress and scarf silks, calico, carpets,
waxcloths, encaustic tiles, cloison enamel work, and stained glass windows, may also
be made or ornamented in this manner; small fancy wooden articles of various kinds,
similar to those at present covered with tartan paper, may be ornamented with
photographs, or exact enlargements in colour, with explanatory notes; pottery and

page_text: glassware, such as cups jugs, bottles, vases, &c., may be shaped in the configurative
designs of insects, insects eggs, seeds, pollen, &c., and be afterwards ornamented
with coloured designs; electroplate and jewellery may also be shaped to resemble
different objects, and have various objects chased or engraved on their surface. As
I consider it a matter of importance to indicate the novelty and subject of interest
in these designs, so as to distinguish them from others, I may for this purpose adhibit
to each the words "Micrographic Art Work," or the word "Micrographic," with the
scientific or popular name of the object introduced or displayed, and its scale of
enlargement in diameters; or, I may name them from the principal subject of
design; as, lace, (design) snow-crystal; calico, (design) scales of brimstone butterfly;
sateen, (design) ant's eye coloured blue on white ground; silk, (design) extension of
part of geranium petal natural colours; china (surface design) geometrical arrange-
ment of earwig's wing in natural colours and gold; silver hair pin, (configurative
design) fly's foot; dress button (configurative design) fern seed, &c.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
First. Ornamental or decorative designs, formed in or on all fabrics and material
to which ornamental designs can be applied, by the application to them, or the
reproduction in them, through suitable processes adapted to each material, of
enlarged copies of invisible or microscopic objects, or parts of them as herein
before described; and also, of enlarged copies of invisible or microscopic objects,
or parts of them, combined, altered, extended, or coloured, in any of the different
ways herein before described.
Second. Combining, altering, extending and colouring enlarged microscopic
objects, or parts of them to form subjects of design in the various ways herein
before described.
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