For illuminated painting we use water-colors; ultramarine, carmine, burnt carmine, burnt sienna, gamboge, deep chrome, vermilion, red-lead, emerald-green, sap-green, Vandyke-brown, lamp-black, and Chinese-white, are those most necessary. Persons who are not already provided with colors will do well to purchase those which are prepared expressly for illuminating, as they are more brilliant. Pure gold, green gold, and silver shells; fine sable hair-pencils, some gum-water, a lead-pencil, H. H. H; some tracing and some transferring paper; and an agate burnisher, which consists of a piece of polished agate, in the shape of a cut pencil, set in a handle; a flat ruler and a tracing pen, are the materials requisite; all of which should be obtained at one of the first-rate artists' color repositories.
Illuminated paintings may be made either on vellum or fine Bristol-board; the vellum is prepared expressly for the purpose, and not that commonly sold; it must be mounted on, or affixed to, a drawing-board (which has previously been covered with cartridge-paper) with artists' glue, before it can be painted on. Great care is requisite in sketching or transferring the outlines to its surface, for it is by no means easy to efface any marks once made; bread is usually more efficacious for this purpose than India-rubber; but, as it must be stale, it can only be used with caution, being likely to scratch or roughen the surface.
Fig. 6.
In all illuminated drawings the background is more or less ornamented; and this may be done according to the fancy of the artist himself; the leading characteristics of these fundamental ornamentations are delicacy, simplicity, and grace. In the different compartments of Fig. 6, four of the most common patterns are given. They are either put in with a darker shade of the grounding tint, or wrought in gold or silver, or painted in white or black. The straight lines must be firm and even, and equidistant; the curved lines flowing and graceful; the dots or spots all equal in size, and at even distances from the lines and from each other. The upper and lower compartments of this cut are pure gold and green gold, on a black and an ultramarine ground; the right-hand side is grounded with a light tint of emerald-green, and worked over with ornamentation in sap-green; the left-hand compartment is silver, on a delicate blue ground.
Fig. 7.
This damask pattern (see Fig. 7), which may be enlarged or diminished, is worked in carmine, on a ground of red-lead, or a light tint of vermilion. It is as well to observe that these groundwork patterns are almost always very minute and delicate; and, therefore, should never be traced with a pencil, or the line will show; but must be worked in with a fine sable-hair brush, and the requisite tint, or with a very fine pen, charged with diluted color; but the brush is preferable.
Fig. 8. Fig. 9.