A Handbook of Illustration

by A. Horsley Hinton

Having thus given particulars as to the preparation of photograms for reproduction, we may now suggest some various applications thereof.

There is a great charm about illustrations which possess a spontaneous and a suggestive character, and in this direction photograms are too often painfully deficient. On rare occasions only, and in the hands of a few artistic workers alone, does photography rise above a certain mechanical and laboured impression, and the rare exceptions are of a character ill-suited for "half-tone" reproduction.

For complete whole-page illustrations a photogram has few drawbacks; but when inserted with letterpress, and required for chapter headings and odd corners, the fact that the picture occupies the whole space enclosed within the boundary lines, and includes a great deal of detail which is not required, makes them less attractive. Their form and style is dull and monotonous.

The accompanying illustration will suggest the manner in which I would recommend photograms to be sometimes employed—especially when the illustrator does not possess the requisite skill to produce the same thing with his brush.

The "Little Gate-keepers" may be taken as an example of what I will call a "stopped-out" photogram; practically no hand-work has been employed upon it beyond the "stopping out" of the original negative. The figures of the children holding open the gate appear in the foreground of a large negative, a landscape near Dunster Castle; the background is composed of trees of an unpleasing form, and, beyond the topographical interest, the bulk of the subject has little to recommend it.

The method of stopping-out is as follows:—The negative should be placed in such a position as to secure a strong transmitted light; it may be fastened to the window, so as to be able to look through it towards the sky, or may be placed in a retouching desk, as used by photographers, if very large plates. In my own practice I use an ordinary easel, sitting to it with my face to the window. On the film side of the negative carefully draw round the more critical outlines, such as figures, faces, trees, &c., with a very fine-pointed brush, or a pen, dipped in opaque black varnish, gradually broadening the line to about a quarter of an inch. Now on the reverse, or glass side of the negative, paint out with black varnish all the rest as required; the effect of painting-out on the reverse side being to give a slightly softer or vignetted effect as is seen in the ground and gate-posts of the accompanying illustration.

Where it is desired to carry the vignetted effect to a greater length, some oil colour, red by preference (which may be thinned with copal varnish), may be used, and when partially dry the finger may be used as a dabber to remove just sufficient to admit of the plate printing very faintly.

In such a practice as this a little resourcefulness and ingenuity will stand the operator in good stead, and many modifications and "dodges" will occur as the work proceeds. Thus, for instance, if the whole of the painting out be done on the film side, the bare outline of the background and surroundings may be scratched in with a needle so as to give a sketchy appearance in the print; such sketched outline may adhere to the original form or may be entirely invented. Some taste must be exercised to prevent the elaborate photographic image from appearing incongruous with the sketched outline.

In the accompanying "Boy gathering Wortleberries," two children have been taken out of an unfortunately grouped trio, a badly developed transparent sky has been converted into a hill in the background, and some little details of landscape have been painted on to the print.

A good deal has been said of the modern illustrator shirking or ignoring backgrounds in his illustrations, yet I am inclined to think that in such cases as these, and very many others, the background is best only suggested or omitted altogether. In an illustration which purposes to tell us some little fact, or is designed to beautify and enliven a page, we do not want a whole chapter from nature's book, but just such selected passages which the judgment of the artist illustrator shall select.