My Photo Journal: Morning Light at Stone Street Park

These are the magic moments that you will remember on your deathbed.
The things that made life worth living. Your first love, the birth of your child,
achieving that lifelong dream, sharing great food and sights with friends and loved ones.
Richard Heart

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit,
and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
Black Elk

Throwback photo of a bare willow tree in morning light at Stone Street Park in Oshawa. Stone Street Park is a large park along the Oshawa segment of the 1400-km Great Lakes Waterfront Trail. The Oshawa portion of the Waterfront Trail runs along Lake Ontario for 15.5 km from the McLaughlin Bay Wildlife Reserve to Whitby Harbour. The ever-changing views along the water at Stone Street Park make it one of our favourite destinations to walk the dog.

© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Gathering Cowslips, 1872

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
William Shakespeare, Fairy Land I

A vintage outdoor illustration from 1872 showing two little girls gathering cowslips (Primula veris) in the forest. In Shakespeare's time, cowslips were often associated with fairies and magic. These “faerie cups” were believed to have the ability to lead unsuspecting wanderers down paths of adventure, mischief, and hidden treasure.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Photo credit: Wikipedia

In 19th century England, the yellow blooms of the common cowslip was widely held to signify “winning grace” and “comeliness.” In the Victorian language of flowers, the cowslip symbolized youth, rusticity, pensiveness, and healing.

You can download the vintage illustration as a free 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
Vintage illustration is from my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: A Trio of Yellow Orchids, 1909

To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Here is a trio of botanical illustrations from 1909 featuring beautiful yellow orchids. Download and print for wall art or to use in various altered art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects. You can find the free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG of the first yellow orchid (see preview image above) without a watermark here.

You can find the free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG of the second yellow orchid without a watermark here.

You can download the free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG of the third yellow orchid without a watermark here.

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For non-commercial use only. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Two Varieties of Begonias, 1900

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.
Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

A pair of black and white vintage botanical illustrations from 1900. These two flower drawings feature very old varieties of begonias. The first, Begonia 'Gloire de Lorraine' was first bred in 1891 in France. Since 1940, this hybrid has been classified as Begonia x сheimantha. You can read a short article of this flower in a December 1, 1900 issue of American Gardening here.

The second drawing is of the Begonia 'Gloire de Sceaux,' which is an even older variety that was first bred in 1883. It is described in various vintage catalogs as "One of the finest flowering Begonias introduced for many years..." and as "Perhaps one of the most valuable additions in later years..." The plant is supposed to be a prolific bloomer in winter months with soft silky pink flowerrs that contrast well with its dark, bronzy plum foliage that posseses a rich, metallic lustre.

You can download these botanical clipart as a free 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: In the Conservatory, 1872

Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable,
and you are worth the effort.
Deborah Day

An antique illustration from 1872 showing two ladies in the conservatory, tending to their large collection of plants.

You can download this free high-res 6" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbookingprojects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Collage, Papercrafts, Scrapbooking or Wall Art: Conversations in the Garden 4

I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice;
had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

An antique illustration from 1872 showing a scene from the garden. Two ladies are having an earnest conversation under a vine-covered arbor. The young woman on the right seems to be thinking deeply about the information imparted to her by the lady who is seated on the left.

You can download this free high-res 6" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage art, papercrafts, scrapbooking or DIY wall art projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Fall Chrysanthemums (Set 1)

"You're beautiful and sad," I said finally, not looking at him when I did.
"Just like your eyes. You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid
but forgot I knew until I heard it again."
For a long moment there was only the whirring sound of the tires on the road,
and then Sam said softly, "Thank you."
Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

A pair of black and white vintage flower illustrations from 1897. The drawing on the left is of a bouquet of pompone chrysanthemums and the drawing on the right shows a type of anemone-flowered pompone chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemums, often affectionately called mums for short, are a popular autumn flower in North America and you can see an abundance of these blooms for sale in many stores come September. They are grown in a variety of bright and cheerful colours and are a welcome sight when the weather turns cold and dreary.

You can download these botanical clipart as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Collage, Papercrafts, Scrapbooking or Wall Art: Conversations in the Garden 3

It was they who taught me that a conversation even between strangers
could be a gift and a sport of sorts, a chance for warmth, banter, blessings, humor,
that spoken words could be a little fire at which you warmed yourself.
Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoirn

An antique illustration from 1867 showing a scene from the garden. A lady with her daughter has come to visit a friend or relative in her garden. They seem to have interrupted the lady of the house in the middle of arranging a bouquet of flowers (peach-coloured roses or poppies, perhaps) in a vase.

You can download this free high-res 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage art, papercrafts, scrapbooking or DIY wall art projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

My Photo Journal: Morning Light at Lakeview Park

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.
E.B. White

A crisp and brilliant morning at Lakeview Park in Oshawa. This is one of our favourite parks to walk in with the dog; it has lots of paved paths from which you can see and hear the water of Lake Ontario. Easily one of the most popular and accessible parks in the city.

All photos © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Trees at Orono Crown Lands

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Perfect weather for a nature walk through the Orono Crown Lands; the day was bright and sunny with just enough wind to keep the walk from getting unpleasantly hot. We took the Purple and Pink Loops today which meant we didn't get to walk beside Wilmot Creek. If possible, we aim to try the Red or Orange Loops next weekend as the path along the water can be very pretty.

All photos © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Edwardian Lady at the End of an Autumn Trail, 1904

I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky,
joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming,
defended by nothing, guarded by no one.
Edward Abbey, Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside

A vintage outdoor illustration from 1904 showing a young Edwardian lady standing with a chair at the bottom of a winding trail. Her image is framed on the left hand side by a border of stylized autumn leaves forming an arch above her head.

You can download theis antique drawing as a free 5" x 8.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Dahlia Flower Fairy Representing Loveliness, 1867

Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
Thou mov'st as calmly on.
Nathaniel Parker Willis

A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the vivacious and exuberant dahlia. The fairy is pictured kicking her heels as she lightheartedly dances with a garland of dahlias that twists and twines around her in a floral S-shape.

Accompanying the illustration is the second stanza of a porm from Nathaniel Parker Willis entitled "To a Belle." You can read this bright and lovely poem in full here. This vintage drawing is originally from a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the modest violet here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Violet Flower Fairy Representing Modesty, 1867

Sweet flower, that hides in the shade,
Meet emblem of the modest maid,
Whose virtues, like thy perfumes rare,
Makes home delightful everywhere.
Sir Walter Scott

A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the shy and retiring violet. The fairy is pictured clutching the stems of two clusters of violets growing upwardly in an U-shaped arch. Accompanying the illustration is a short porm from Sir Walter Scott. From a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the lovely dahlia here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Portrait of a Victorian Lady with Scarlet Geraniums, 1893

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this,
in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

A black and white illustration from 1893. This image shows a portrait of a Victorian lady enclosed in a round frame surrounded by scarlet geraniums.

Despite popular belief, red geraniums are not real geraniums. The red-flowered species is actually a pelargonium. The most common red cultivar is Pelargonium x hortorum. It is thought that Wiccans may believe how red geraniums planted near doorways can ward against illness entering the house. In the language of flowers, red geraniums represent feelings of love, passion, and romantic attachment.

You can download this antique engraving as a free 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. You are welcome to use it for collage, papercrafts, scrapbooking or other graphic design projects.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: A Wooded Path in Autumn by H.A. Brendekilde

A Wooded Path in Autumn, 1902
by Hans Andersen Brendekilde (1857 – 1942)

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground.
Andrea Gibson

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
Anne Lamott

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Two Ladies Outdoors (Set 3)

I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers
and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.
Wendy Delsol, Stork

A pair of vintage graphics from 1904 showing Edwardian ladies in outdoor settings. The one on the left is walking through the grounds of a grand estate; the one on the left is leaning casually against a stone wall with views of lofty hills and lush countryside behind her.

You can download these two graphics as a free 10" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Two Ladies Outdoors (Set 2)

She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one
― the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul.
She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries.
In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years,
at peace in the contemplation of herself.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned

A couple of vintage illustrations from 1892 showing Victorian ladies in outdoor settings. The one on the left is veiled and standing in front of a garden bench; the one on the right is leaning against a solidly built fence.

You can download these two graphics as a free 10" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Two Ladies Outdoors (Set 1)

A good roast of sun, it slows you, lets you relax–and out here if there's anything wrong,
you can see it coming with bags of time to do what's next.
This is the place and the weather for peace, for the cultivation of a friendly mind.
A.L. Kennedy, Day

Two vintage illustrations from 1892 showing two Victorian ladies dressed for the outdoors with umbrellas in their hands.

You can download these two graphics as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Souvenir of Acherese by Jean-Leon Gerome

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
Stanley Horowitz

I originally found this fall landscape painting — Souvenir of Acherese, painted in 1903 by Jean-Leon Gerome (1824 – 1904) — on Wikimedia Commons, which I cropped and colour-enhanced. You can download a 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG of my digitally altered version without a watermark here. I thought it would make an attractive decoration for a scrapbooking project or a Thanksgiving card but you can also simply print and frame for wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Free Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: The Birds' Farewell

A vintage nature poem titled "The Birds' Farewell" written in 1888 by O. Herford about birds flying south for winter and saying goodbye to a young girl whose garden they've been in all summer.

You can download this illustrated poem as a free high-res 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG (without a watermark) for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Summer Meadow, Pobojka by Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky


Summer Meadow, Pobojka, 1938
by Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky (1873 – 1944)

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Henry James

Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Altered Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Conversations in the Garden 1 & 2

In the best conversations, you don't even remember what you talked about, only how it felt.
It felt like we were in some place your body can't visit,
some place with no ceiling and no walls and no floor and no instruments.
John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

Two vintage illustrations from 1891 showing scenes from the garden.The first illustration shows three Victorian ladies chatting in the garden. Two of the ladies are sitting on garden benches while the third lady (who is wearing a veiled hat) has her hand on the shoulder of the seated lady on the left. In the background is some shrubbery and a sundial.

The second illustration shows two ladies sitting on a garden bench while a third lady stands behind them. The seated lady at the back of the bench is holding an umbrella, the lady seated in front is gazing straight ahead with a posy of flowers on her lap. The caped lady holding a purse in her hands is deep in conversation with the seated lady holding the umbrella.

You can download these free high-res 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEGs without a watermark for altered art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here and here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.