The [two outline] [portrait sketches] shown here are reproduced from the St. James’s Gazette. Their thick lines have a tendency to become offensive when subjected to careful book-printing, but appearing as they originally did in the rapidly printed editions of an evening paper, this emphasis of line was exactly suited to the occasion.
Translucent white tracing-paper should be used for tracing purposes, pinned securely through the corners of the photograph or drawing to be copied in this manner on to a drawing-board, so that the tracing may not be shifted while in progress. No pencilling is necessary, but the tracing should be made in ink, straight away. Fixed Indian ink should be used, because when the tracing is finished it will be necessary for process purposes to paste it upon cardboard, and, tracing-paper being so thin, the moisture penetrates, and would smudge a drawing made in soluble inks unless the very greatest care was taken. Old tracing-paper which has turned a yellow colour should on no account be used, and tracing-cloth is rarely available, because, although beautifully transparent, it is generally too greasy for pure line-work.
Pen-drawings which are to be made and reproduced for the newspaper press at the utmost speed are made upon lithographic transfer paper in lithographic ink, a stubborn and difficult material of a fatty nature. Drawings made in this way are not photographed, but transferred direct to the zinc plate, and etched in a very short space of time. No reduction in scale is possible, and the original drawing is inevitably destroyed in the process of transferring.
WASH DRAWINGS.
Wash drawings for reproduction by half-tone process should be made upon smooth or finely grained cardboards. Reeves’ London board is very good for the purpose, and so is a French board they keep, stamped in the corner of each sheet with the initials A. L. in a circle. Wash drawings should be made in different gradations of the same colour if a good result is to be expected: thus a wash drawing in lampblack should be executed only in shades of lampblack, and not varied by the use of sepia in some parts, or of Payne’s grey in others. Lampblack is a favourite material, and excellent from the photographic point of view. Payne’s grey, or neutral tint, at one time had a great vogue, but it is too blue in all its shades for altogether satisfactory reproduction, although the illustration, [The Houses of Parliament], shown on p. 122, has come well with its use. Chinese white was freely used in the drawing, and its value is shown in putting in the swirls of fog.