It will be best to use an indelible or fixed ink for this work, as, even after practice, some ugly splashes are apt to occur, which will have to be afterwards corrected with Chinese white. Splatter work is more largely practised in America, and is just one of those tricks which in dexterous hands is sometimes so peculiarly happy in its results, and yet so apparently unresponsive in others.
We now come to consider an important group of drawing methods, known as "Scratch boards."
In speaking of white cardboards, reference was made to clay surface boards, and the possibility of removing any fault by scraping with a knife. We have now to do with a selection of boards in which the clay surface and the scraping-out possibilities are carried to the utmost practical extent, and made use of as a chief method of representation, not as a means to correct mistakes. These boards are of two principal kinds: 1st. White, on which are impressed white indented lines, giving the whole a ribbed appearance; and, 2nd, Black reticulations, or lines printed at right angles to the impressed grain or ribs.
Canvas-like reticulations, irregular grain or "Aquatint" dots, and diagonal or vertical lines, are the most useful patterns (of which there are many); they may be obtained at F.W. Devoe & C.T. Raynolds Co. and most of the dealers in materials, and are known as scratch-out, scrape-out or stipple boards.
Both boards are of a somewhat similar description, differing only in the method of producing the pattern. In the white boards the marks are impressed; whereas in the black ones they are printed.
Taking the black patterns first, the grain printed thereon supplies us with a flat grey tint composed of numerous fine black lines; this for convenience we will call the full tint. Now if we gently scrape the clay surface with the sharp point of a knife, moving it across the black lines, they will be removed from the top of the impressed ridges which cross at right angles, thus at once converting the black lines into rows of black dots, and giving a lighter tint which we will call a half-tint. Closely examine the accompanying series of specimens, and this will be at once recognised.
THE SCRAPER.
No. I. No. II.