Steampunkish Design Templates

While I was brainstorming about what to do with my kitchen cabinets, you may have noticed the nice piece of clip art that I'm considering for a stencil. Since I'm not that graphically talented (notice the lovely stock blog template...) I've been looking around for ideas and templates to use for projects.

The best resource I've found, so far, are the Dover Electronic Clip Art CD-ROMs & Books. They come with a coloring book sized book of designs (useful for looking through and dreaming about projects while *not* in front of your computer) and a CD with the designs in 6 different formats (gif, jpg, tif, eps, pct, and bmp). The image quality is high and the designs I was drawn to will be relatively easy to enlarge to the size I need for projects.

I ordered a couple -- one on 293 Art Nouveau Designs and another simply called Old-Fashioned Frames. I considered some of the Victorian ones, but they looked a bit too fussy for DIY projects.

I was disappointed in the Art Nouveau ones -- not they weren't wonderfully Art Nouveau, I'm just not sure I realized quite how *floral* Art Nouveau graphic design was. (The image at the top of this post was one of the better Art Nouveau clips.) Old fashioned frames yielded the best options for the sort of projects I'm thinking about. The nice thing about the old-fashioned frame set in particular was that it has a breadth of types of frames -- Victorian, Art Nouveau, geometric, scrollworks, simple, ornate, etc. Something for everyone and every project that requires framing. I can see some of Mr. von Slatt's Electrolytic Etchings with these designs. Or perhaps you'd use one to incorporate a little bit of steampunk "bling" to your laptop casing.

The images are royalty free, including for web use (up to 10 images per "publication"), so feel to grab the ones I'm using in this post to get you started.


Old-Fashioned Frames CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art) via Amazon.

Old Charles Street Jail

NYTimes.com today has a slideshow of Boston's Old Charles Street Jail which has been turned into a hotel. Many of the design elements -- exposed brick, iron bars -- would work well in a steampunk home.

More inspiration posts.

ebay scavenging...

Spent some time today poking around Ebay looking for things to use in the house. Thought I'd share these with you -- but there are plenty, plenty more.




Large Shell Casings
I'm not sure what you would do with these, but I thought they were neat. Bud vases, perhaps?




Antique Switch Plate

Just the switch part, without the cover plate, costs $35 new... so far this is a steal. And way cool. I'm going to bid on it for my hallway.

Also worth checking out is this Lightning Rod -- I can't get an image, and I can't tell if it's antique or not from the description, but it does look pretty unique.

The Steampunk Interiors of Tuomas Korpi

I recently ran across a link to Tuomas Korpi's artwork on the Steampunk Forums. I love the broken down magnificence. The light quality is wonderful -- all icy grey or warm sunshine. (Too bad we can't all have vaulted glass domes in our homes...)



Tuomas says I am huge fan of steampunk myself and I certainly consider some of my works as a steampunk - well at least I've tried to capture the atmosphere and style of applying something 18-19th century technology and roman or english and soviet architecture etc. to huge scale of buildings etc.

His interiors come from his imagination, inspired by images he sees online.

He doesn't sell prints, but will sell high resolution images for printing for about $50 each. (Use the contact email on his website to discuss specifics with Tuomas.)

Other steampunk art posts.

Hundertwasser's Incinerator Works, Vienna

I was struck by the steampunk whimsy of this incinerator works in Vienna, designed by architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Most of his other work isn't very steampunk, but I liked the brass pipe, the swirling mural, and the minaret on top.

(thanks to my sister for pointing out Hundertwasser's work.)

Drains of Canada -- steampunk landscapes

Ben pointed me to this fascinating interview of Michael Cook, an urban explorer, on BLGBLOG today. ("Drains of Canada")

It's fascinating. Poke through some of the pictures -- I can't believe the urban drain system is this steampunk. Old brickworks -- rusty hydraulics -- arches -- pinpoints of light in the dark -- dirt and grime -- cogs and gears. Inspiring.

Robert Houston's Colonial Steampunk

I received an email from a gentleman by the name of Robert Houston last night:

A very good friend of mine just sent me a link to your blog a week or so ago, this after I mentioned to him that my living room (I'm slowly but steadily remodeling my entire house) was shaping up in the mode of an English gentleman's club.

I must admit that I have never heard of steampunk before, a deficit in my knowledge of contemporary culture. I was quite taken with what I read on your blog and did some subsequent exploring. I myself am an artist (sculptor and painter) and a punk rocker from the 80's.

I was amused by Robert's realization that his living room might be steampunk, because I've had the same conversation many times, most recently with the Edison Bar's Andrew Meieran. (It's this experience of knowing what you want your house to look and feel like, having someone introduce you to steampunk, and saying "so that's what you call it!"

Robert sent along some pictures of his living room, which I've dubbed "Colonial Steampunk":


After all, not many gentleman's club's of the 1890s would have yellow bookcases and saltillo tiles -- unless you happened to be in Mexico. I like how it integrates the colors and materials of the new world with the furniture and styles of the old world.

It's still a work in progress -- he's finishing all the saltillo tiles by hand -- but I think it will be lovely when it is done. Do click on the above picture for a larger version, and zoom around the room for more details.

Robert also built his wife a fountain that is nicely colonial steampunk:



Its wood cast concrete and copper. Water drips from inside the roof down the wires holding the copper candle holders and over them. This is a steampunk object all the way even though I didn't know it....

Most of Robert's artwork is in more of a folk art tradition, but this unfolding hexagon box reminds me of something a Victorian magician would use:



He also has an intuitive grasp of the punk in steampunk:

I think that the real problem today is that mass production, plastic and the bottom line have not only homogenized our culture but have completely separated us from craft. Skilled labor barely exists now as manufacturing gets outsourced to the 3rd world... When I was looking at the steampunk sites I felt that what people are looking for here is a return to quality, a return to a way of living where 'how' your living is important. The punk attitude of rejecting convention and I do as I please is a perfect fit as modern culture continues its race to the bottom for everyone who is not a multi multi millionaire.

Welcome to steampunk, Robert!

Remember -- I'd love to see and share pictures of your homes, workshops, and home projects. You can always contact me as saracarl -at- gmail dot com.