WE WISH to supplement the preceding pages with a chapter on the technic of wood engraving, and a few words about kindred arts which are of special consequence to the illustrator-printer. The art of wood engraving I consider one of the most valuable things for the illustrator-printer to learn. True, this art is going out of use because of its tediousness; and, it must be confessed, if you wish a picture of a building in your paper, it is much more economical and you can get a better result if you make a pen drawing and send it to be photo-engraved, than if you engrave it on wood. On the other hand, you get, in an engraved line, whether it is white line or facsimile black line, a richness of line that is in perfect keeping with the printed type. The white line made by the graver is apt to be sharper and deeper than the white space between two photo-engraved black lines, and it does not fill up so easily.
We illustrate this chapter with some valuable suggestions, and we consider that a printer who would learn wood engraving to such an extent that he could {224} execute designs of the kind suggested, could put forth some excellent examples of artistic printing.
Wood engraving is closely associated with the great masterpieces of printing in the past, though, to be candid, I must admit that only a limited public is capable of appreciating these historic associations; and you could not, perhaps, build up your job printing department entirely on such lines. But from time to time you might make posters, handbills and booklets, where antique styles could be followed, and they would meet with appreciation.
Nothing could be more easy to learn than the theory of wood engraving, though the practice is trying to one’s patience. Simply take a block of boxwood and place it upon a leather cushion filled with sand, so that you may turn the block of wood in any direction. The natural tendency is to place the handle of the burin or graver in the middle of the palm and push with all one’s might, in order to cut away the wood; but it should be placed against the palm, directly below the little finger, the little finger nestling in the concave part of the wooden handle and the other three fingers brought up along the shaft of the graver, the ends of the fingers touching the handle of the graver and its shaft, but not wrapped around it. The instrument should be pushed over the wood with about one-tenth of the muscular exertion that the beginner naturally uses. Hold a well-sharpened graver with ease and firmness, and the process of engraving tires the arm no more than writing does.
It takes three or four months’ practice to learn to thus hold the tool and use it with such surety that one {225} can draw in white line on the block as in “The Standard-Bearer” of Schafhausen. But after the facility is acquired, it does not take one long to get up a block either in this style, or in what we should term the Chap-Book style, especially when you have made your design so simple that it can be engraved in a simple way. Please mark this last qualification. The wood engravings in our magazines are of a style unadvisable for the printer to follow, for the engraving of a multitude of gray tones and the printing of the same requires much labor in cutting and in make-ready, but cuts of the kind we recommend can be printed rapidly and with little make-ready. We give a specimen of the genuine Chap-Book illustration, and “The Pedlar’s Lamentation,” which is a clever modern adaptation of the Chap-Book style. These form good examples for the beginner to follow.
Beyond the directions as to holding the burin or graver, there is little that the experimenter will not find out for himself. A design is drawn on the block with pencil, pen or brush. When tones are to be indicated, it is advisable for the printer to use a pen or brush. To lighten the yellow color of the wood, the block may first be rubbed with Chinese white or with moistened whiting. The design may then be sketched in pencil, and afterward drawn in ink. As the design must be in reverse, a good way is to draw it with a pen on thin, smooth paper. A piece of transfer paper, like typewriters’ carbon paper, is laid on the block; the design is laid face downward upon this, and a hard pencil or stylus is used to go over the back of the design, which can be seen through the thin paper. The pressure transfers {226} the mark of the transfer paper to the block, rendering the design in reverse, and it may then be drawn over with a pen or brush. In a good wood engraving the
THE STANDARD-BEARER OF SCHAFHAUSEN. A 1521 wood cut in white lines.
curving of lines is generally reduced to a minimum. Though the transferring and careful cutting around the line is wearisome at first, it allows one to consider each line separately and thoroughly to study economy of line. {227} The block is held, if small enough, between the thumb and first finger of the left hand, the fingers holding not the top and bottom of the block but the sides of it.
