The manner of handling the knife (an ordinary penknife, or a specially constructed blade, may be used) differs a good deal in individual workers, but the safer manner is perhaps to keep the knife well up and nearly vertical. Avoid outlines, allowing the different degrees of tint to separate one object from another, as one would do in a wash drawing, and proceed somewhat in the manner illustrated by the accompanying figures.
A MISTY MOONRISE.
(Original 4 x 2½.)
(Original 4 x 2½.)
One of the difficulties to be guarded against is the too great evidence of scraping, the knife marks often revealing themselves much more plainly in the reproduction than in the original, also the too sudden contrast between the full tint and the scratched half-tint. Notice in the two accompanying sketches on diagonal grain boards, by Mr. C.J. Vine, how the full tint, when it meets the half-tint, is broken up by slight irregular scratches; especially is this seen in the sky of "A Misty Moonrise." In this sketch, sky, sea, and the sails of the two more distant boats, are almost entirely made up by the diagonal tint and the scraped half-tint. Only in the hulls of the boats and the sails of the nearest boat is pen-work introduced, the lines being drawn diagonally from right to left, at right angles to the grain of the full tint.[6]
PEN AND INK ON BLACK LINE SCRAPE BOARD. FIRST STAGE.