10½ × 6½. THE AMBULATORY, DORE ABBEY.
Photograph painted in parts with body-colour.
The drawings made in wash by Myrbach and Rossi have set the fashion for much recent illustration. Vignettes made with a full brush and reduced to infinitesimal proportions have abounded since the illustrated editions of Tartarin of Tarascon first charmed the eye; but now, reduced to the common denominator of the sixpenny magazines, they have lost all the qualities and retained all the defects the fashion ever had. The drawing of [Corfe Railway Station] was made in washes of Indian ink with a full brush, each successive wash left to dry thoroughly before the next was laid on. Parts are reinforced with pencil strokes: these can readily be identified in the print. The block was then vignetted.
Another method is used for half-tone work. A photograph is mounted upon cardboard, and may be worked upon in brushwork with body-colour to any extent, either for lightening the picture or for making it darker. For working upon the ordinary silver-print an admixture of ox-gall must be used or the pigments will not “take” upon the sensitized paper.[1] The illustration, [The Ambulatory, Dore Abbey], is from a photograph, worked upon in this manner. The photo was so dark and indefinite that something was necessary to be done to show the springing of the arches and the relation of one pier to another. Chinese white was used in the manner described above, and the arches outlined in places by scratching with the sharp point of a penknife.
[1] Refer to The Real Japan, by Henry Norman. Fisher Unwin, 1892. The book is freely illustrated with half-tone blocks made from photographs. The photographs were all extensively worked upon with body-colour in this manner. Indeed, the brushwork may clearly be discerned in the reproductions.