Round ships for the Christmas tree
Still from the film “Chuk and Gek” (1953). Even in an abandoned hut in the taiga it was possible to make toys for the Christmas tree!
"The next day it was decided
prepare a Christmas tree for the New Year.
They couldn’t make up anything they could think of
they make toys!
They tore off all the color pictures
from old magazines.
They made animals and dolls from scraps and cotton wool.
They pulled all the tissue paper out of my father's drawer.
and scattered lush flowers.
Why was the watchman gloomy and unsociable?
and when he brought the wood,
stopped at the door for a long time
and marveled at their new and new ideas.”A. Gaidar “Chuk and Gek”
prepare a Christmas tree for the New Year.
They couldn’t make up anything they could think of
they make toys!
They tore off all the color pictures
from old magazines.
They made animals and dolls from scraps and cotton wool.
They pulled all the tissue paper out of my father's drawer.
and scattered lush flowers.
Why was the watchman gloomy and unsociable?
and when he brought the wood,
stopped at the door for a long time
and marveled at their new and new ideas.”A. Gaidar “Chuk and Gek”
“In the word “learn” for parents
I don't mean solving homework for your children.
You just need to take a keen interest in their lives
at school from first grade until graduation,
do they do what they are asked to do?
what and how do they read, what do they think about what they read?
Share your views with them."Comment from one of the VO readers on the article
about the problems of modern Russian school...
I don't mean solving homework for your children.
You just need to take a keen interest in their lives
at school from first grade until graduation,
do they do what they are asked to do?
what and how do they read, what do they think about what they read?
Share your views with them."Comment from one of the VO readers on the article
about the problems of modern Russian school...
Make it with your children. New Years is soon. A holiday when each of us is waiting for something joyful, unusual, magical... But you can expect something magical, or you can create this very “magic” with your own hands, together with your children and grandchildren, which will only benefit both adults and children. And this material will be dedicated to the story of how and what can be done for children and with children.
Well, we’ll have to start again with childhood memories, because absolutely everything comes from it, from childhood.
And it so happened that in those distant 50s they started arranging a Christmas tree for me very early. In any case, at the age of five I already had a Christmas tree, and together with the children of relatives invited to it, to whom I, standing on a chair, was supposed to read a poem, but... from excitement, I fainted. After all, this is the first public performance, and this is not a blunder at all.
Well, then there were Christmas trees every year. They were decorated mainly with glass toys, among which I especially liked a set of German glass balls, bought before I was born. Against their background, both paper flags and cotton figures, along with papier-mâché fruits, seemed too cheap to me, and I didn’t like them on the Christmas tree then.
But years passed, and my wife and I found ourselves in a village hut, where, of course, there was a Christmas tree, but it was simply stupid to bring toys to it from a city apartment. And then we remembered Gaidar’s Chuk and Gek and their resourceful mother, and decided to decorate the Christmas tree “with everything at hand.”
They made flags, snow-covered huts, and gold and silver snowflakes. Only the garland with lights was purchased from the city. For our three-year-old daughter it was a fairy tale, but it also turned out to be a fairy tale for the children invited to it and their parents, who could not believe that all these toys were made with their own hands.
And then it happened and even became a tradition: for the next New Year, make some homemade toys and hang them on the Christmas tree. This is how a 4-tower knight's castle with weather vanes on the towers and battlements, a windmill, and a gingerbread hut made of cardboard and plastic appeared, which is still intact. And even the “terem-teremok”, made, as I remember, before 1987, because in 87 a drawing of it, made from a photograph, had already ended up in my book “From everything at hand.”
Some not very durable toys broke, some went to school, where they required New Year's crafts. But much has survived to this day, or rather, until we had a granddaughter, with whom we successfully continued this tradition of decorating the Christmas tree with homemade toys. Well, when she got married, the toys had to be shared, so they could even be called part of her dowry.
Literally just completed for the New Year, a model-toy for the Christmas tree - “English Royal Cogg”. Walnut shell body! Photo by the author
But then it suddenly became clear that the New Year is just around the corner, and the Christmas tree collection is not being updated! That’s what my wife told me – it’s not good to break the tradition of making New Year’s toys from everything that’s at hand.
“Yes, I’m writing a book! – I tried to excuse myself by being busy, but my wife sternly besieged me: “The book can wait!” But he won’t wait for the New Year!” And then she brought me several old books in which children were recommended to make New Year's toys... literally from everything, including walnut shells - a mandatory attribute of the New Year holidays at all times. Here, they say, are ready-made samples for you to work with.
“So I saw this in the Niva magazine for 1900!” - I exclaimed, and in response I was told that then - what to do... “come up with it yourself!” “Look, how smooth and round they are!”
And then I immediately remembered that in the same Middle Ages it was “round ships” that sailed the seas, so called because their length to width ratio was insignificant. And above all, the most famous “round ship” of that time was the famous Hanseatic cogg, after which ships were built in England and France, and even on the Mediterranean Sea!
And this is what its deck and bow superstructure—the forecastle—looked like during the work process. Photo by the author
Is it worth living in the XNUMXst century if you cannot surpass what was done at the very beginning of the XNUMXth century?
Well, I thought and made, not just one, but three ships from walnut shells - an English royal cog from the era of Richard III, an Arabian dhow and... a small dinghy from the smallest half of a walnut. All other materials were the most affordable and affordable - brown cardboard from store packaging, colored paper, kebab sticks, toothpicks, thread and acrylic paints.
Arabian dhow ship. Photo by the author
The technology for making such boats turned out to be very simple. The shells of peeled nuts, split in half, had to be smoothed out using sandpaper glued to plywood. Then glue a deck of packaging cardboard from the box onto them, since it has a decent thickness. Glue yellow paper, lined to match the boards, onto the deck itself. The ends and keel of the cogg are very simple, and these too need to be cut out of packaging cardboard and then glued to the shell, reinforced with thin strips of construction paper. Moment glue is best suited for this job.
The yacht is their nutshell. The cockpit, the portholes, and the deck flooring are all in place. Photo by the author
I took all the other patterns for the small cogg from my own book “For Those Who Love to Craft.” I scanned the illustration, printed it to scale and cut out the developments of the forecastle and sterncastle - the platforms at the bow and stern, as well as the sail.
We had to tint the sail first with a red felt-tip pen, and then paint lilies and leopards on it with yellow paint. This work is very delicate, but the toy itself is very small, so if they turn out a little crooked, no one will pay attention to it!
Illustration from the book “For Those Who Love to Craft.” Making the simplest model of an English cogg. From here it is quite possible to take the sail and the development of superstructures at the bow and stern
The developments also had to be painted with a felt-tip pen in the color of the wood, and then glued to red cardboard on the back side. You can cut out all the teeth on the castels either with a model knife or with a piece of a Neva razor blade - the result is good in both cases.
Only, when working with children, you will need to think about what exactly, what kind of operation, appropriate to their age, you can entrust to them. You need to let your child feel involved in your activity, and at the same time not allow him to ruin everything and cut himself until he bleeds. Although, you can, for example, work yourself and simply explain to your child what and how you are doing, and... tell some history, associated with such ships.
Hanseatic Cogg. Illustration from the book “From everything at hand.” From here you can take the expansions of the add-ons
The cut out castles are bent and glued together, the front one is attached to a slot in the stem, and a small superstructure is made for the stern one. On my cog I even made a steering wheel with a tiller, but that’s up to everyone’s liking.
Then a mast with a yard is installed, onto which a sail twisted into a tube is glued, after which it will forever seem filled with wind. The rigging is made from thicker threads.
After all, we are not making a copy model, but a toy model, and on it, hanging on the Christmas tree, everything should be visible very well. For example, for strength, I soaked them all with “Superglue” (under the open window!), and after that my cogg acquired the strength that every New Year’s toy needs.
Both the dhow and the yacht were made in a similar way. Moreover, while one boat was drying after painting, work was going on on another. That's why they were all done so quickly.
When I finished the work and was approved, I thought that using this technology I could make a whole collection of model toys and... “thus glorify myself for centuries” (joke).
The fact is that there were plenty of “round ships” in the history of shipbuilding. And if so, then we can easily make them “even more round”, turn them into a funny souvenir, toy, and even... into a collectible!
A ship of the ancient Egyptians from the well-known collection of postcards from the set of V. Dygalo and N. Narbekov “The History of the Ship” (1986)
For example, the ship of the ancient Egyptians with an A-shaped mast, semicircular platforms at the bow and stern and beautiful ends. Yes, he just begs to have his body made of walnut shells.
Etruscan ship
An Etruscan ship with shields like wallpaper nail heads on the sides, it is also round if you look at it in profile and at the same time shrink it quite a bit in proportions.
Japanese "round ship". Illustration from the book “Knights. Locks. Weapon"
You can also make a Japanese ship quite round with a superstructure protruding beautifully beyond its stern and a dragon’s head on the bow! As an option, with the sides cut out in a semicircle, you can also make a cogg according to my sample. By the way, the picture from the book shows how to trim its sides.
Here it is, this English cogg, which costs absolutely nothing to shrink in length, and the sail... there is already a sail for it!
On a French ship the sail is even more beautiful. And maybe one of the VO readers who knows computer art could turn it onto a plane and reduce it to a suitable size?
In the Middle Ages, it was fashionable to build models in the so-called “church style” (they were later given to cathedrals for the health of sailors!).
So, they, too... were specially compressed in front and behind, so that the image of the ship was more integral.
A ship in a “church style”. Illustration from the book “Knights. Locks. Weapon"
Using this principle, it seems, it is possible to make a multi-masted ship from a shell, and not even just one...
Four-masted galleon. Probably, on a similar scale, it can also be made on a shell body. Illustration from the magazine "Lefty"
And, finally, from half a walnut it may well turn out to be such a fairly modern sailboat, like a cutter with one mast, a long bowsprit and a large gaff sail...
Cutter
In general, as it turned out, there is so much that can be done that... for the next New Year, it is quite possible to decorate a Christmas tree in a nautical style, especially if you are a retired sailor.
And there’s no need to say how happy your children will be with such toys. After all, the human soul is always waiting for a miracle, and a child’s soul in particular. And isn’t this a miracle: there was a shell, but it became a boat, and how elegant and beautiful it is.
But it’s not without reason that it’s said:
“If a person’s soul thirsts for a miracle, do this miracle for him. He will have a new soul and you will have a new one.”*
A. Green “Scarlet Sails”.Even if this miracle is very small...
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