Tole Painting: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft
By Pat Oxenford
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Tole Painting - Pat Oxenford
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A Brief History of Tole Painting
Tools and Materials
Basic Skills
Basic Folk-Art Flowers
Project 1. Small Round Tray with Black Background
Project 2. Small Round Tray with Red Background
Project 3. Oblong Candle-Snuffer Tray
Project 4. Red Wall Match Safe
Project 5. Teapot Design
Project 6. One-Sheet Waiter
Project 7. Two-Sheet Waiter
Gallery of Reproduction Painted Tinware
Gallery of Early Painted Tinware
Supplies and Resources
Museums, Historic Sites, and Festivals
Bibliography
Tole is French for sheet iron and originally referred to the heavy-gauge iron trays and metalware items produced and decorated in France during the eighteenth century, though the word today has broader applications. In this book, the term refers to painting on tin. This technique was traditionally used on kitchen items such as trays, coffeepots, teapots, cups and mugs, and canisters, as well as document boxes, trunks, and match safes.
I have been doing decorative painting for more than three decades, with tole painting on tinware being one of my specialties. My work has been displayed at art shows and museums, including two in Germany. I’m a juried member of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, a member of the National Society of Decorative Painters, and a Brazer Guild member of the Historical Society of Early American Decoration. I had the privilege of studying with many well-known decorative painters, including Jackie Shaw and Jo Sonja Jansen. In 1998, I was selected as one of the top two hundred craftsmen working in traditional forms by Early American Life, and I was one of twelve Pennsylvania Dutch artisans featured in the documentary Expressions of Common Hands: Folk Art of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Pat Oxenford in her studio with a display of her hand-painted trays.
This gooseneck coffeepot with black background was painted in acrylic by Pat Oxenford, with white flowers and buds and transparent overstrokes of yellow, blue, and red, plus black linework details. Green leaves with yellow veins and strokework complete the design. An elongated S stroke surrounds the top edge of the vessel, and yellow comma strokes are on the bottom flange and lid.
Most of the tinware items I decorate have been handmade by my craftsman husband, Ray, who is a tinsmith, woodworker, and clock repairer. I adapt many of my designs from tracings of those found on old pieces of tinware, painting them on the newly handcrafted pieces.
In this book, I teach you how to do tole painting on your own tinware pieces. The first several chapters talk about the history of tinware and tole painting in America, what tools and materials you need to get started, and the basic skills used by traditional tole painters. You will learn how to prepare your tin for painting and how to make the basic strokes and folk-art flowers, then move on to specific projects that incorporate what you’ve learned. There are also galleries of early and reproduction painted tinware that you can copy or use for inspiration to create designs of your own.
This half-sheet waiter measures 8¾ x 6 inches. It has a black background, with a semitransparent white border around the edge of the floor. The design consists of green leaves with black strokework detail and red berries. A fine yellow stripe is around the inside edge of the white band on the floor, with a series of three graduating-size comma strokes around the inside. A yellow rickrack stroke border complements the flange. PRIVATE COLLECTION
The folk art of painting on tinware, known as tole painting, was first done in New England just after the Revolutionary War. It became popular among the Pennsylvania Dutch when tin peddlers carried unpainted wares from the New England tinsmiths as far as Virginia to sell to a wider market. Before I talk about painting on tinware, let’s take a look at the early tinshops, where they were located, what they made, and what characteristics defined each of them.
In the early 1700s, German and Swiss immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, about the same time that Edward Pattison arrived from Wales and settled in Connecticut, near the Berlin-Hartford area, where he established the first known tinshop in the colonies around 1740. This region soon became the center of the American tin industry and remained so until around 1850. Pattison imported his raw materials of tinplate, wire, and lead from Pontypool, Wales. These raw materials were first brought into the colonies through Boston Harbor, but as the tinsmithing trade became popular, merchants in New York also began to stock the raw materials.
Painted with a red base, this oblong bread tray has a white band around the floor. The ends each have a large yellow ball flower and two large yellow leaves with black details, along with a series of comma strokes to form the smaller leaf details. The side design has a single row of yellow teardrop strokes along the bottom edge and a series of two comma strokes near the top edge. The design on the white band on the floor is green leaves with red berries and fine black linework details. PRIVATE COLLECTION
At first Pattison worked alone to make enough products to both sell from his shop and peddle around the local countryside. These silvery household items were greatly admired, and business grew as more and more people bought them to replace those made of horn, wood, iron, and pewter. When young men of the area realized that the tinsmithing business was a good trade, they were eager to become apprentices. The tin industry grew so fast and was so successful that each tinsmith soon acquired his own apprentices, and it wasn’t long until most homes in the Berlin area had a trained tinsmith. Over the next century, the industry came to involve a large part of the population of Hartford County.
A vermilion ball flower, with yellow and semitransparent white comma-overstroke details, is the main feature of this large black oval spice canister. At the base of the flower are two large green comma strokes. Three stylized green leaves with yellow detail plus clusters of yellow comma strokes and dots complete the design. Note the fine yellow cross-hatching at the center top of the ball flower between the comma strokes. A yellow rickrack border enhances the top of the canister, and a spray design of yellow comma strokes appears on the top of the lid. PRIVATE COLLECTION
These early tinshops were small and often located in the dooryards of the tinsmiths’ homes, allowing them to continue to do their farm chores, since the families lived off the land. Pattison taught his apprentices to make what he did, and they in turn handed down these forms to their successors. Many of the tin objects were fashioned after practical English pottery and metalware, though occasionally new items were introduced by a tinsmith. Pattison’s shop was known for trays, coffeepots, teapots, document boxes and trunks, canisters, and small cradles.
This red sugar bowl has a white band around the top with green leaves that have black detail and red berries. A yellow rickrack design with double yellow dots is directly below the white band. There are yellow teardrop strokes around the bottom flange and yellow stroke details on the dome top. PRIVATE COLLECTION
There were several other important early tinshops. Elijah and Elisha North operated tinshops from 1806 to 1840 in Maine. Another prominent tinsmith in Maine was Oliver Buckley, whose shop was in operation from 1807 through 1855. The Buckley shop is known for the platform-top document box as well as the wet-on-wet technique of painting found on early document boxes, tea caddies, and teapots. By 1830, Zachariah Stevens had established a tinshop in Stevens Plains, Maine, where he had a thriving business until 1842. (Stevens’s great great granddaughter, Esther Stevens Brazer, wrote the influential book Early American Decoration in 1940, causing a resurgence of interest in decorative painting. The Historical Society of Early American Decoration was founded in her memory in 1946.)
The first of the Filley tinshops was operated by Oliver Filley from 1800 to 1846 in Bloomfield, Connecticut. From 1818 through 1853, Harvey Filley had a tinsmith shop in Philadelphia. In 1825, Augustus Filley opened another shop in Lansingburg, New York. The Filley shops were noted for the variety of items they produced, including several kinds of trays, canisters, coffeepots, sugar bowls, creamers, molasses or syrup cups, knitting needle cases, tumblers, snuffer trays, candleholders, snuffboxes, and match safes.
The early tinplate was not like that which we use today. It was hand dipped, which gave