ON TRACING AND TRANSFERRING.
IF a copy is to be made of any illumination, the easiest mode is by affixing a piece of French tracing paper on the back of the drawing, and throwing it over the front; begin with a fine-pointed H H H pencil, to draw an accurate outline of the whole thin, pale and delicate. Above all things, be correct; do not trace more than is necessary for your object, and avoid details, which may more easily be put in by the eye. Too much tracing often confuses. The upper and inner line of the hair, the eyebrows, the line of the nose, the upper line of each eyelid, the central line of the mouth, and the contour of the cheek and chin, is sufficient to give a correct tracing of a face; if you trace more, in retracing it you will get confused. With ornamentations the same rule applies; trace only as much as will secure your object. When your tracing is complete, unfasten it, and attach it by two spots of gum to the back of the drawing-board or vellum prepared to receive it, and placing the red prepared paper between it (with the prepared side towards the board or vellum), you trace over it with the same pencil (using a little pressure), and you then obtain a fine, thin, delicate and faint red tracing on the vellum. In this operation, in order to work cleanly, the following rules must be observed. You should use a fine H H H sharp-pointed pencil; you should not press hard to make the transfer too red, nor should your pencil-tracing in the first instance be otherwise than light; it becomes deeper when the pencil goes over it a second time, which avoids the necessity of lifting up the paper, to ascertain where you have or have not been over. A good, correct and delicate transfer makes it pleasurable to paint; a coarse deep red one gives the artist an infinite deal of trouble, and the drawing in this case will always look smeared and dirty, which with a little attention can easily be avoided. As the prepared red paper cannot always be easily obtained, it is much easier to prepare it yourself, which is done as follows: Purchase at the chemist's a quarter of a pound of red French chalk, scrape some with a table-knife on the thinnest white writing paper you may have handy, and with a piece of wadding rub it equally over the surface, taking care that the other side is kept perfectly clean; no grease or water should be used in this operation. Should a pencil tracing be preferred, blacklead may be used instead of the chalk.
ON RAISED GOLD ORNAMENTATIONS.
THE raised gold ornaments, which form so brilliant a relief, amidst the gaiety and contrast of well-arranged colours and matted gold, are subjects which require a great deal of practice; they should be used, therefore, sparingly at first, on account of their difficulty, and they should always be introduced with great judgment, since a profusion of bright ornamentations distracts the eye from the main subject, and becomes extremely vulgar, resembling much that ginger bread appearance of the French class of tinsel and emptiness; whilst a moderate use of them, here and there, enriches the drawing, without their effect becoming tiresome and destructive to the general beauties of the drawing itself. They should, therefore, be limited to small raised dots, or tre-foiled leaves only, a line to form a bright shadow on the dead gold, or the arteries on a leaf of green gold. They may also form a circle round a gem of ruby or emerald, representing the setting or mounting of real gold, and such other trifles as the subject may require. Water gold-size, for the purpose of producing these raised ornaments, is well calculated to effect this. The brown paste contained in the little vessel is used in a similar manner as a cake of water-colour, wetting it with a sable brush, till of sufficient consistency, and painting with it the desired ornament, and raising it by dropping freely sufficient paste on it, which, by its own gravity, will be properly rounded off, and becomes, when properly set, fit to receive the gold leaf. It stands then raised on the vellum, and may be increased ad libitum by dropping more and more on it till sufficiently high. In ten or fifteen minutes, at furthest, when sufficiently set, cut a piece of gold leaf (always a trifle larger than the object), and previously slightly breathing on it, with the warm breath, place the cut gold leaf on it, either with the point of a brush, or clean scissors, or a pair of steel tongs made for the purpose. The gold, being thus placed on the top, should receive the warm breath again, and immediately it will adhere firmly to the moistened matter: leave it there for about one hour, when it will be properly hardened; after which, with a soft clean piece of wadding, rub it over, and the superfluous parts will loosen easily, while those intended to be gilded will remain. Should any part be imperfect, apply the paste again as before over the imperfect part, going through the same process till complete. This, however, will not occur when the pupil acquires sufficient experience of the material with which he has to work. Another mode of raised gilding, and one which, in my opinion, is more expeditious and less troublesome, is effected by my "Liquid Gold Cement," which is used in a similar manner as the "Enamel White," and is partly composed of the same material, with some slight addition. You dip the brush in the bottle, and use it rather thinly at first, whilst delineating the ornamentation, and afterwards drop on it (whilst wet) as much of the same as the brush will hold, till sufficiently raised; in about half an hour, being properly set, paint over it, in either colour, gold or silver, and when quite dry and hard, let the same be burnished over gently with the crooked agate, and the ornament will stand brightly out in the drawing; this mode I much prefer to the former. There is still another and better method, which I make use of in large and elaborate work, but which I only can communicate to my pupils personally, as it is a process that cannot possibly be imparted in any other manner than by personal superintendence and demonstration.