When I had my recent cross stitch revival, I went digging through the storeroom to find my old patterns.
In amongst the appallingly twee designs (Holly Hobby, cutesy angels and an entire books of teddy bears), I found my Charley Harper charts. And I realised that after thirty years, I still loved them…
Given that they’d withstood the test of time, we thought it might be nice to try and find some Charley Harper art for our walls. Harper was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist, with a highly stylised, geometric style that focused almost exclusively on wildlife. Both Pete and I find his use of shape, colour and humour very appealing.
We bought this beautiful coffee table book from Amazon...
I also added two sets of postcards to our order. They’re printed on thick gloss card, which makes them ideal for framing. We laid them out on the dining room table and spent an enjoyable couple of hours sorting through them…
I’d purchased three silver photo frames at a closing down sale earlier in the year, and the mats were exactly the right size for the cards. Narrowing it down to just nine designs was tricky – I, of course, simply picked the ones I liked best, but Pete took into account colours and curves and themes. The nesting birds, for example, all have similar leaves…
Art really doesn’t have to be expensive – the frames (including mats) cost $20 each (half price) and the postcards worked out at just 50c each.
I’m so chuffed with how these turned out – they’ll look wonderful hanging in our hallway!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
They have indeed turned out wonderful. They would look great in most everyone’s hall. I just may have to copy you. Good job.
Squee! Harper is one of my design heroes. I love this. <3
Wonderful! And I had never heard of Harper.
I have a lot of inexpensive postcard art hanging in our home. One of my favourites are old style French soap ads that I had mounted on wood blocks (from Costco) and now the hang in our guest bathroom downstairs.
I still pick up my cross stitch from time to time. I love to work on linen, across one thread on my current project, so practically go cross eyed if I do it too much.
An artist totally new to me – I find his work very attractive and you have made art from his art by the way you are presenting it at indeed a low cost for huge pleasure . . . some homework will once again be done . . .
Took ten minutes off for ‘research’: love the ‘bird’ cards but even more so the 2017 calendar: how very beautiful! Am at the moment trying to justify spending the fifty odd dollars for both when my ‘need to buy’ list runs to some length :) ! Oh, Amazon postage costs so much lower than those from the actual Charley Harper shop!
Timeless
They really are something quite unique – very interesting Cross stitch patterns too.
Celia – check out Pomegranate dot com – they have an amazing selection of Charley Harper books, calendars etc. Along with mouth-watering offerings from a raft of other artists! Unfortunately, their postage is not free outside the US.
So clever! xx