Vintage Art Appreciation: Untitled Landscape by Richard Heintz

Untitled Landscape
by Richard Heintz (1871 – 1929)
Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.

Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.

You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, “far removed from the seats of strife,” as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge.

There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.

At times, you become almost certain that you slabbed this hillside three days ago, crossed this stream yesterday, clambered over this fallen tree at least twice today already. But most of the time you don’t think. No point. Instead, you exist in a kind of mobile Zen mode, your brain like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of the body below. Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing. At the end of the day you don’t think, “Hey, I did sixteen miles today,” any more than you think, “Hey, I took eight-thousand breaths today.” It’s just what you do.
― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Free Garden-Themed Templates: Vintage Happy Garden Days Journal Cards

Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side;
our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.
― Ally Condie, Matched
Two filler cards and two lined journaling cards featuring vintage illustrations of children and garden elements from c1900, set against a lightly patterned paper with subtle textures. Use all four together in a pre-made album or stitch into a handmade journal; you can also use these cards separately for personal or garden notes. You can download the high-res 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEGs without a watermark here.


All pre-made templates 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 Tag for Gift Giving, Journaling or Scrapbooking: Fantastic Phoenix with Pink Rose Blank Calling Card

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein
This was originally a Victorian calling card from the 1880s. It shows an illustration of a fantastical bird with a bright orange tail (perhaps the legendary phoenix) flying towards a pink rose, and there is a blank scroll in the centre of the card for your own greeting or a personal message. I thought this would make a lovely gift tag but you can also use it as a place card or to embellish journaling and scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 3" x 5.25" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


All pre-made templates 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 Nature Poem: In Daisy Days by Mary Elizabeth Blake

The Flower Girl, 1897
byJules-Cyrille Cavé (1859 - 1949)
Below is a poem called "In Daisy Days," written by Mary Elizabeth Blake. Mrs. Blake's admirers included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the latter of whom wrote of her: "You are one of the birds that must sing." "In Daisy Days" was published June 1902 and goes like this:

Suns that sparkle and birds that sing,
Brooks in the meadow rippling over,
Butterflies rising on golden wing
Through the blue air and deep-red clover,
Flower-bells full of sweet anthems rung
Out on the wind in lone woodland ways --
Oh, but the world is fair and young
In daisy days!

Lusty trumpets of burly bees
Full and clear on the sweet air blowing;
Gnarled boughs of the orchard trees
Hidden from sight by young leaves growing.
Scars of the winter hide their pain
Under the grasses' tangled maze,
And youth of the world springs fresh again
In daisy days.

Down in the valley and up the slope
Starry blooms in the wind are bending;
Glad eyes shine like the light of hope,
Comfort and cheer to the dark earth lending.
Buoyant with life they spring and soar
Like the lark that carols his matin lays,
Climbing to gates of heaven once more
In daisy days.

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.

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Junk Journaling: Three Sisters with Plant, Rake, and a Watering Can

With rake and seeds and sower,
And hoe and line and reel,
When the meadows shrill with “peeping”
And the old world wakes from sleeping,
Who wouldn't be a grower
That has any heart to feel?
― Frederick Frye Rockwell, “Invitation,” Around the Year in the Garden
Vintage illustration showing three sisters in the garden. The oldest is carrying a watering can, the middle one is holding a rake, and the youngest sister is cradling a small, potted plant in the crook of her arm. You can download this free high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for card making, mixed media collage or junk journal projects here.


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 sharing or publishing.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: In Garden-land by Augusta Hancock

A Victorian poem in celebration of nature, written by Augusta Hancock in 1893. Here is the poem in full:

IN GARDEN-LAND
In the garden-land of Nature
The smiling daisies blow,
With hearts kissed gold by sunshine,
And lips like winter snow;
The little winds play o'er them,
And dewdrops from above
Rest on them with the nightfall,
Like sparkling crowns of love.

On the misty slopes of sky-land
When sunlight ebbs away,
The daisy-stars of Heaven
Unfold as fades the day;
On sapphire banks they open,
Each set in radiant light --
The flowerets of the angels
That watch the livelong night.

In the world of busy workers,
'Mid turmoil and 'mid strife,
Are seen sweet girlish faces,
Like flowers that brighten life,
Their songs ring through our sadness,
Their laughter fills the air --
God's daisies fresh and heaven-sent
To blossom everywhere.


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.

Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Blue Lily from 1800

Blue thou art, intensely blue;
Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?
– James Montgomery
A digitally restored and enhanced antique illustration of a blue lily (African agapanthus or Agapanthus umbellatus) from an 1800 botanical magazine. You can download the free high-resolution 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Can be used in a mixed media collage project, as a greeting card or journal cover, or simply print and frame to enjoy as wall art.


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 Nature Poem for Kids: The Song of the Bee by Nancy Nelson Pendleton

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

THE SONG OF THE BEE
by Nancy Nelson Pendleton
(originally published September 1897)

Buzz, buzz, buzz
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow,
A jolly good fellow,
And yet a good worker is he.

In days that are sunny,
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy,
He's hoarding his wax;
On pinks and on lilacs,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms
He levies a tax.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover
He humming hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings;
He never gets lazy,
From thistle and daisy
And weeds of the meadow
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
From morning's first gray light
Till fading of day light,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through,
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.


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: Young Lady in a Flower Garden by Tivadar Zemplényi

Young Lady in a Flower Garden
by Tivadar Zemplényi (1864 - 1917)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
― Anaïs Nin

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
― Jane Goodall

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud.
In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.
― Goldie Hawn