Public-domain childrens' graphics

Grandma's Graphics hosts a really lovely collection of web-resolution public domain children's artwork, perfect for design projects:

From Harry Clarke to 1890's storybooks, if you're looking for unique images or clipart for use on your web pages or in other design or craft projects you've come to the right place. There's a treasury here at Grandma's Graphics that you probably won't find anywhere else online. Some of these graphics are quite large and take time to load, but be patient, they're worth the wait.

Grandma's Graphics: Unique Images from the Past (via Making Light)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Art and Design • Copyfight • Happy Mutants • Kids • maker • Old school

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

jjasper

We overloaded the site’s bandwidth allotment :-(
Anonymous

Man… will I ever get to see this stuff? Quick, make some more posts so this one falls to the bottom!!
Daemon

Hmm. Wonder if there’s any place to get really high resolution jabberwocky scans… I’ve been wanting that as a poster.
Noelegy

I LOVE Harry Clarke. Years ago, my ex-husband’s family had an edition of Edgar A. Poe stories illustrated by Clarke. Far, far too dark to be considered a children’s artist, I would say, and very reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley and Franz von Bayros, two of my other favorite artists. Have to put Arthur Rackham in there, too. All artists I wanted to be when I grew up. *sigh* Wish I could get hold of one of those Poe/Clarke editions.
David

Yep. Another site succumbs.
kiltreiser

Going to take me all day to go through that site, my boss thanks you for killing my work output…
johnny_action

Its down already with a bandwidth limit exceeded but I really thank boingers for posting this.

These look perfect for a project I am going to start soon.
geekgrandma

Hi guys. I’ve just increased the bandwidth so all should be fine now. Thanks so much for all the visits.
dhalgren

Sigh, the site has been BoingBoing’d already. Seriously though Cory thank you for posting this site, as soon as I can look at it hehe.
drew3ooo

A post on this blog can sure take down a site fast. They can have some of my bandwidth if I can get in their site with it. It looks great and I’m always searching for good looking graphics to work from. Hmmm, bandwidth donation. There’s a project.
Momma

Thanks for sharing this! I have tons of plans for DIY projects that I can incorporate these into. :)

Have a great day!
quickbrownfox

@daemon: You don’t need terribly high resolution to get a decent vector trace of a black and white image. Then you can print it as big as you want. Potrace is a good free option.
ZachMatthews

Even cooler idea: take these graphics and incorporate them into a laser-cut Moleskine notebook cover, here: http://www.engraveyourbook.com/

I keep fishing journals, but the book I bought at Barnes and Noble is falling apart. When I saw that laser engraving site earlier I knew I’d hit the jackpot. I even have an old 1890s fishing comic I plan to vector trace when I get home…
todayinart

I can’t see the site since it is down now, but the image above reminds me of those old coloring kits where the black was velvet. I think they used to have those at the book fairs when I was a kid.
VagabondAstronomer

Well, the site may have been thoroughly bOINGED, but I’ve pretty much made up my mind that the image up there would be perfect on my blog and the rear window of my car…
copiesofcopies

Aw man, if you had posted this just a couple weeks earlier, it would have taken me a lot less time to find little Victorian kids for http://www.nameourbaby.org. I googled and googled, I raided the Wondermark archives… finally, I discovered that Project Gutenberg has scanned a wealth of great pictures from public domain books. But seriously, I need a flickr search exclusively for public domain images from old books for ironic websites. Too much to ask?