Painting Flannelgraph

Summers at Gramma's held many fascinations for an impressionable young lady who had yet to enter her teens. I loved feeding chickens, tending the garden, playing with the toys in Gram's Scripture Gift Shop that consumed the majority of the downstairs of her house, making a trip to the shopping plaza to have lunch at the Woolworth's counter. So many delightful experiences.



Perhaps my favorite activity, which rarely ever happened, was to be allowed to help Gram paint flannelgraph scenes. Gram had very strict standards about quality control, and a little sprout of a girl could hardly be expected to understand the importance of getting it just right.



On those occasions when Gram had a deadline to meet - perhaps a missionary was coming to visit the East Glenville Community Church of which she and Gramp were founding members - we would make our way upstairs to the southwest room where the deer head was mounted and where we kids bunked down when the whole family visited. There Gram would uncover the Box.



The Box was specially designed and created for painting flannelgraph scenes. Next to the box were bolts of flannel material - mostly white, but a bit of yellow, light green and light blue, some tan and gray. Gram spent hours cutting the material into just the right size to cover a flannelgraph board.



Stored behind the material were the patterns. First, there was a filing drawer filled with 8 x 10 scenes drawn in colored pencil. These scenes portrayed places where Bible stories took place - the Temple, a stormy sea, a calm sea, a simple home, a hillside - every conceivable place mentioned in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.



I don't remember who drew the scenes. I think it was one of Gram's friends. But the basic outlines of every scene had been translated onto a piece of muslin, scaled to fill the appropriate size for a flannelgraph background.



On several tables scattered around the Box lay all kinds and colors of Tempra paints, brushes, knives, sponges (real artist sponges, not cleaning ones), containers of various cleaning liquids, cloths for wiping up spills and other gadgets the use of which I could only guess.



The Box itself was oblong, constructed of some sort of dark green wood. The inside was lined with aluminum foil, and had lights mounted all around the sides, halfway between the top and bottom. These lights could be turned on with the flip of a single switch. The top of the box was a thick glass plate that let you see into the box without being able to reach in.



You put a muslin template on top of the glass plate and covered it with a blank piece of flannel. Then, using metal clips, both pieces were fixed to the box. When the lights were turned on, you could clearly see the pattern through the flannel. Gram would take pens of liquid embroidery ink (mostly black although she had several colors including blue, brown, gray, red and green) and trace the pattern onto the piece of flannel.



Gram always worked meticulously. She started in the upper right hand corner and worked her way down, so as not to smear the lines already drawn. She always stuck the corner of her tongue out of the left side of her mouth in order to steady her hand. Sometimes I could hear her hum a little tune as she worked.



After the scene was transferred to the flannel, Gram would take out the paper template and set out the colors she would need, which were listed in some sort of numerical hieroglyphics I never did understand. She used the sponges mostly, creating a wash of green where there was grass, or blue of various shades for water. In rooms, the walls would take on a light gray of stone and the timbers a gentle brown. It was a real artform to apply the paint just heavily enough to tint the nap without saturating the fabric.



At first, when I was 8 or 9, my job was to hand her the tools she needed. I was allowed to sit on a stool and watch as long as I didn't touch anything. It was so interesting that I sat for hours and didn't even chatter as I so often did. When I was 10 or 11, I was allowed to carefully cut out the flannelgraph figures while I perched on my stool.



That was back in the days before die-cut and punch came along. I loved cutting out the sun, moon and stars for creation, the basket Paul was let down in, the loaves and fishes of the miracle of feeding the 5 thousand. It was way better than cutting out paper dolls, and I stuck my tongue out just like Gram to make sure I didn't cut off something important. After all, what good was a crippled man with his foot cut off?



Even after the figures only had to be punched out, I still loved releasing them from their pages and tucking them in the envelopes, carefully labeled as to Scripture story. Often, after Gram had tired and gone downstairs to make lunch, I would stay and finish the story I was working on, remembering Gram's words about how much time it saves the missionaries so that they could practice telling the stories.



When I turned 12, Gram allowed me to begin tracing the scenes with the liquid embroidery pens. At first I couldn't get the hang of it, and disastrous blobs and globs of ink splotched my work. It took a long time to learn just how hard to apply pressure and just what speed to move your hand. I finally found my stride and took great pride in turning out as many scenes of a morning as I could.



Gram inspected everything, and if my work were not good enough, she used the flannel to stuff dolls that she made for the needy children on the mission field and at the Desi Scott Orphanage. I suspect they got a lot more dolls for several years than they normally would have!



Then came the day Gram decided I should learn to paint! I could not wait. I had been watching her for years and was sure I could do it without batting an eye. Gram demonstrated while she talked me through the technique, but I was so eager to do it that I near about burst.



Finally she handed me the sponge. She had selected a sea scene, probably because you couldn't mess that up too much, and I dipped the tip of the sponge in the blue paint. I moved my hand to touch the flannel, and a big drip of paint fell smack onto the corner of the material. I gasped.



Gram grabbed a sponge and carefully maneuvered the paint until it was spread out enough to cover the mistake. "Too much paint on your sponge. All you need is a whisper," Gram said. I squeezed paint out of the sponge, dabbed it against a drip cloth and tried again.



"Gently, lightly," Gram said, peering over my shoulder. "With the nap." She took my hand in hers and brushed the sponge across the flannel in sweeping strokes, always moving from left to right. "That's it. Just brush it lightly." She let go of my hand.



I was doing it! I felt like I was flying as I watched the color magically appear, as if I were not even touching the fabric, yet somehow the color melted into the scene. It never occurred to me I was doing anything artistic. I suspect my first paint attempt ended up inside a doll, though Gram never said so.



Whenever Gram allowed me to paint, she would watch me for the first twenty minutes or so, then go about her business elsewhere in the house, making excuses to peek in and see how I was doing from time to time. Sometimes she would remind me not to get too heavy handed. Other times she would just nod and tiptoe out. The hardest part was to get her to let me start. It always took a lot of begging and pleading.



Full sets of flannelgraph scenes involved hundreds of paintings for both Old and New Testament stories. Gram gave sets away as often as she sold them, especially to missionaries in poor countries. I suspect they are still in use somewhere in the world today. They have gone out of style in America nowadays, though once in awhile I find them in use and they are such a novelty that people pay attention.



I had a complete set myself when I was traveling as a children's minister. Gram made them especially for me, and some came from my Mom who used them when she was a Sunday School teacher. I even used them with my own children when I home schooled. I still find telling a story with flannelgraph fascinating.



Perhaps someday I shall tell one to my grandchildren. But alas, I wore out the set Gram gave me, and wonder if even I could find a set to use anymore. Sometimes I think about Gram and how much she had invested in such a simple activity, yet one that touched so many lives. I still have a long ways to go!