Edward Gorey is today's Google Doodle!

Speak of the devil on your blog, and he appears - as a Google Doodle! Cult favorite illustrator and writer Edward Gorey is the most recent Google Doodle as today would have been his 88th birthday - he was born on February 22nd, 1925. Fun fact: Gorey only attended art school for one semester, leaving the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943. The Washington Post has a fun tribute to Gorey and his "playful macabre" up on their Comic Riffs blog, along with links to their ten favorite Google Doodles.

Free vintage illustration of a woman's portrait head

Click on the image above to view and download the full-size version

The illustration above was originally captioned "Animal Magnetism" (whaaaaat?) and purports to show the model in a "field" of "animal magnetic attraction." Okay, whatever, you crazy old 19th century you. 

I see this image turning into the base of a gorgeous necklace pendant, don't you?  

I made you bookplates! Plus, free vintage illustration of herons on cedar branches in a swamp

Click on the image above to view and download the full-size version

Today's contribution is an illustration titled "Herons on the Tree Tops" from the 1869 book The World at Home, or Pictures and Scenes from Far-Off Lands. This is such a richly detailed illustration, and I spruced it up and saved it with a large file size so that you can use it in a variety of projects. I think you could make some amazing crafts with this. I created a "This book belongs to" bookplate from it using the common font ENGRAVERS MT. Download a page of these free bookplates by clicking here for a Microsoft Word .docx file or here for an Adobe Reader .pdf file.      

If you'd rather have the file so that you can add your name digitally, you can download the image for the free bookplate in its largest size here:

Or in the more typical 4" x 3" size here: