Part 4

These tints are produced by Day’s shading mediums; thin sheets of gelatine engraved upon one side with lines or with a pattern of stipple. There are very many of these patterns. They can readily be applied, and with the greatest accuracy, because the gelatine is semi-transparent, and admits of the operator seeing what he is about. These mechanical tints are capable of exquisite application, but they have been more frequently regarded as labour-saving appliances, and have rarely been used with skill, and so have come to bear an altogether unmerited stigma. They can be used by a clever process-man, under the directions of the draughtsman, with great effect, and in remarkably diverse ways. For it is not at all necessary that the tint should come all over the block. It can be worked in most intricately. The illustration, _Leebotwood_, shows an application of shading medium to the sky. The proprietors (for it is a patent) of these devices have endeavoured to introduce their use amongst artists, with a view to their working the mediums upon the drawings themselves. It has been shown that the varieties of shading to be obtained by shifting and transposing the gelatine plates is illimitable, but as their use involves establishing a printing roller and printer’s ink in one’s studio, and as all artists are not printers born, it does not seem at all likely that Day’s shading mediums will be used outside lithographic offices or the offices of reproductive firms.

Here are appended some examples of the shading mediums commonly used.

The cost of reproduction by process varies very greatly. It is always calculated at so much the square inch, with a minimum charge ranging, for line-work, from two-and-sixpence to five shillings. For half-tone the minimum may be put at from ten shillings to sixteen shillings. Plain line blocks, by the bitumen or albumen processes, cost from twopence-halfpenny to sixpence per square inch, and handwork upon the block is charged extra. Some firms make a charge of one penny per square inch for the application of Day’s shading mediums. Line blocks by the swelled gelatine process are charged at one shilling per square inch, and reproductions of pencil or crayon work at one-and-threepence. Half-tone blocks from objects, photographs, or drawings range from eightpence to one-and-sixpence per square inch, and the cost of a photogravure plate may be put at two-and-sixpence for the same unit. The best work in any photographic process is infinitely less costly than wood engraving, which, although its cost is not generally calculated on the basis of the inch, as in all process work, may range approximately from three shillings to five shillings for engraving of average merit.

Electrotype copies of line blocks cost from three-farthings to three-halfpence per square inch, and from half-tone blocks, twopence, although it is not advisable to have electrotypes taken of these fine and delicate blocks. If duplicates are wanted of half-tones, the usual practice is to have two original blocks made, the process-engraver charging for the second block half the price of the first.

PAPER.

The process engraver will tell you, if you seek counsel of him, that you should use Bristol-board, and of that only the smoothest and most highly finished varieties. But, however easy it may render his work of reproduction, there is no necessity for you to draw upon cardboard or smooth-surfaced paper at all. Paper of a reasonable whiteness is, of course, necessary to any process of line engraving which has photography as a basis, but to say that stiff cardboards or papers of a blue-white, as opposed to the cream-laid variety, are necessary is merely to obscure what is, after all, a simple matter.

Bristol-board is certainly a very favourite material, and the varieties of cardboards sold under that name are numerous enough to please anybody. Goodall’s sell as reliable a make as can be readily found. It is white enough to please the photo-engraver, and of a smooth, hard surface; and a hard surface you must have for pen-work. But it is an unsympathetic material, and it is an appreciably more difficult matter to make a pencil sketch upon it than upon such papers as Whatman’s HP.

Mounting-boards are frequently used, chiefly for journalistic pen-work, when it may be supposed nobody cares anything about the _finesse_ of the art, but only that the drawing shall be up to a certain standard of excellence, and, more particularly, up to time. Mounting-boards are appreciably cheaper than good Bristol-board, but if erasures are to be made they are troublesome, because under the surface they are composed of the shoddiest of matter. They are convenient, indeed admirable, for studies carried out in a masculine manner with a quill pen, or for simple drawings made with an ordinary writing nib, with not too sharp a point. For delicate technique they are not to be recommended.

Indeed, for anything but work done at home, cardboards of any sort are inexpedient; they are heavy, and take up too much space. If they were necessary, of course you would have to put up with the inconvenience of carrying two or more pounds’ weight of them about with you, but they are not necessary.

Every one who makes drawings in pen and ink is continually looking out for an ideal paper; many have found their ideals in this respect; but that paper which one man swears by, another will, not inconceivably, swear at, so no recommendation can be trusted. Again, personal predilections change amazingly. One day you will be able to use Bristol-board with every satisfaction; another, you will find its smooth, dead white, immaculate surface perfectly dispiriting. No one’s advice can be implicitly followed in respect of papers, inks, or pens. Every one must find his own especial fancy, and when he has found it he will produce the better work.

The pen-draughtsman who is a paper-fancier does not leave untried even the fly-leaves of his correspondence. Papers have been found in this way which have proved satisfactory. All you have to do is to go to some large stationer or wholesale papermaker’s and get your fancy matched. It would be an easy matter to obtain sheets larger than note-paper.

Whatman’s HP, or hot-pressed drawing-paper, is good for pen-drawing, but its proper use is not very readily learnt. To begin with, the surface is full of little granulations and occasional fibres which catch the pen and cause splutterings and blots. Sometimes, too, you happen upon insufficiently sized Whatman, and then lines thicken almost as if the drawing were being made upon blotting-paper.

A good plan is to select some good HP Whatman and have it calendered. Any good stationer could put you in the way of getting the calendering done, or possibly such a firm as Dickinsons’, manufacturers of paper, in Old Bailey, could be prevailed upon to do it. If you want a firm, hard, clear-cut line, you will of course use only Bristol-board or mounting-board, or papers with a highly finished surface. Drawings upon Whatman’s papers give in the reproductions broken and granulated lines which the process-man (but no one else) regards as defects. Should the block itself be defective, he will doubtless point to the paper as the cause, but there is no reason why the best results should not proceed from HP paper. Messrs. Reeves and Sons, of Cheapside, sell what they call London boards. These are sheets of Whatman mounted upon cardboard. They offer the advantages of the HP surface with the rigidity of the Bristol-board. The Art Tablets sold by the same firm are cardboards with Whatman paper mounted on either side. A drawing can be made upon both sides and the tablet split up afterwards.

In connection with illustration, amongst the most remarkable inventions of late years are the prepared cardboards generally known amongst illustrators as “scratch-out cardboards,” introduced by Messrs. Angerer and Göschl of Vienna, and by M. Gillot of Paris. These cardboards are of several kinds, but are all prepared with a surface of kaolin, or china-clay. Reeves sell eight varieties of these clay-boards. They are somewhat expensive, costing two shillings a sheet of nineteen by thirteen inches, but when their use is well understood they justify their existence by the rich effects obtained, and by the saving of time effected in drawing upon them. Drawings made upon these preparations have all the fulness and richness of wash, pencil, or crayon, and may be reproduced by line processes at the same cost as a pen-drawing made upon plain paper. The simplest variety of clay-board is the one prepared with a plain white surface, upon which a drawing may be made with pen and ink, or with a brush, the lights taken out with a scraper or a sharp-pointed knife. It is advisable to work upon all clay-surfaced papers or cardboards with pigmental inks, as, for instance, lampblack, ivory-black, or Indian ink. Ebony stain is not suitable. The more liquid inks and stains have a tendency to soak _through_ the prepared surface of china-clay, rather than to rest only _upon_ it, thereby rendering the cardboard useless for “scratch-out” purposes, and of no more value than ordinary drawing-paper. A drawing made upon plain clay-board with pen and brush, using lampblack as a medium, can be worked upon very effectively with a sharp point. White lines of a character not to be obtained in any other way can be thus produced with happy effect. Mr. Heywood Sumner has made some of his most striking decorative drawings in this manner. It is a manner of working remarkably akin to the wood-engraver’s art—that is to say, drawing or engraving in white lines upon a black field—only of course the cardboard is more readily worked upon than the wood block. Indeed, wood-engravers have frequently used this plain clay-board. They have had the surface sensitized, the drawing photographed and printed upon it, and have then proceeded to take out lights, to cut out white lines, and to hatch and cross-hatch, until the result looks in every way similar to a wood engraving. This has then been photographed again, and a zinc block made that in the printing would defy even an expert to detect.

Other kinds of clay-boards are impressed with a grain or with plain indented lines, or printed upon with black lines or reticulations, which may be scratched through with a point, or worked upon with brush or pen. Examples are given here:

No. 1. White cardboard, impressed with a plain canvas grain.

This gives a fine painty effect, as shown in the drawing of polled willows: a drawing made in pencil, with lights in foreground grass and on tree-trunks scratched out with a knife or with the curved-bladed eraser sold for use with these preparations.

2. Plain white diagonal lines. Pencil drawing.

3. Plain white perpendicular lines. Pencil drawing.

4. Plain white aquatint grain. Pencil drawing.

These four varieties require greater care and a lighter hand in working than the others, because their patterns are not very deeply stamped, and consequently the furrows between the upstanding lines are apt to become filled with pencil, and to give a broken and spotty effect in the reproduction.

5. Black aquatint. This is not a variety in constant use. Three states are shown.

6. Black diagonal lines. This is the pattern in greater requisition. The method of working is shown, but the possibilities of this pattern are seen admirably and to the best advantage in the illustration of _Venetian Fête on the Seine_.

7. Black perpendicular lines. Same as No. 6, except in direction of line.

Drawings made upon these grained and ridged papers must not be stumped down or treated in any way that would fill up the interstices, which give the lined and granular effect capable of reproduction by line-process. Also, it is very important to note that drawings on these papers can only be subjected to a slight reduction of scale—say, a reduction at most by one quarter. The closeness of the printed grains and lines forbids a smaller scale that shall be perfect. Mr. C. H. Shannon has drawn upon lined “scratch-out” cardboard with the happiest effect.

PENS.

A common delusion as to pens for drawing is that only the finer-pointed kinds are suitable. To the contrary, most of the so-called “etching pens” and crow-quills and lilliputian affairs sold are not only unnecessary, but positively harmful. They encourage the niggling methods of the amateur, and are, besides, untrustworthy and dreadfully scratchy. You can but rarely depend upon them for the drawing of a continuous line; frequently they refuse to mark at all. I know very well that I shall be exclaimed against when I say that a good medium-pointed pen or fine-pointed school nib are far better than three-fourths of the pens especially made for draughtsmen, but that is the case.

With practice, one can use almost any writing nib for the production of a pen-drawing. Even the broad-pointed J pen is useful. Quill pens are delightful to work with for the making of pen-studies in a bold, free manner. A well-cut quill flies over all descriptions of paper, rough or smooth, without the least catching of fibres or spluttering. It is the freest and least trammelling of pens, and seems almost to draw of its own volition.

Brandauer’s pens are, generally, very good, chiefly for the reason that they have circular points that rarely become scratchy. They make a small nib, No. 515, which works and wears well; this last an unusual quality in the small makes. Perry & Co. sell two very similar nibs, No. 601 (a so-called “etching pen”) and No. 25; they are both scratchy. Gillott’s crowquill, No. 659, is a barrel pen, very small and very good, flexible, and capable of producing at once the finest and the boldest lines; but Brandauer’s Oriental pen, No. 342 EF, an ordinary fine-pointed writing pen, is just as excellent, and its use is more readily learnt. It takes some time and practice to discover the capabilities of the Gillott crowquill; the other pen’s possibilities are easier found. Besides, the tendency with a microscopic nib is to niggled work, which is not to be desired at the cost of vigour. Mitchell’s F pen is a fine-pointed school writing nib. It is not particularly flexible, but very reliable and lasts long. Gillott has recently introduced a very remarkable nib, No. 1000, frankly a drawing pen, flexible in the extreme, capable of producing at will the finest of hair-lines or the broadest of strokes.

Some illustrators make line drawings with a brush. Mr. J. F. Sullivan works in this way, using a red sable brush with all superfluous hairs cut away, and fashioned to a point. Lampblack is the best medium for the brush.

To draw in line with a brush requires long practice and great dexterity, but men who habitually work in this way say that its use once learnt, no one would exchange it for the pen. Of this I can express no opinion. Certainly there are some obvious advantages in using a brush. It does not ever penetrate the surface of the paper, and it is capable of producing the most solid and smooth lines.

Stylographic and fountain pens, of whatever make, are of no use whatever. Glass pens are recommended by some draughtsmen for their quality of drawing an equable line; but they would seem to be chiefly useful in mathematical and engineering work, which demands the same thickness of line throughout. These pens would also prove very useful in architects’ offices, in drawing profiles of mouldings, tracery, and crockets, because, not being divided into two nibs, they make any variety of curve without the slightest alteration in the character of the line produced. Any one accustomed to use the ordinary divided nibs will know the difficulty of drawing such curves with them.

INKS.

It is, perhaps, more difficult to come by a thoroughly reliable ink than to be exactly suited with papers and pens; and yet greater attention has been given by manufacturers to inks than to those other necessaries.

You can, often with advantage, use a writing pen; but no one, however clever he may be, can make a satisfactory drawing for reproduction with the aid of writing-inks. They are either not black enough, or else are too fluid, so that it is impossible to run lines close together, or to cross-hatch without the ink running the lines into one another. It may, perhaps, be remarked that this is an obvious error, since many of Keene’s most delightful drawings and studies were made in writing-inks—black, blue-black, or diluted, or even in red, and violet, and blue inks. Certainly Keene was a great man in whatever medium he used, but he was not accustomed to be reproduced in any other way than by so-called _fac-simile_ wood engraving. In this way all his greynesses and faint lines could have their relative values translated, but even in the cleverest surface-printing processes his work could not be adequately reproduced.

Stephens’s ebony stain is perhaps the most widely used ink at this time. It is not made for the purpose of drawing, being a stain for wood; but its merits for pen-drawing have been known for some considerable time. It is certainly the best, cheapest, and least troublesome medium in the market. It is, when not diluted, an intensely black liquid with an appreciable body, but not too thick to flow freely. It dries with a certain but not very obtrusive glaze, which process-engravers at one time objected to most strongly, _because_ they wanted something to object to on principle; but they have at length become tired of remonstrating, and really there was never any objection to the stain upon that score. It flows readily from the pen, and when drying upon the nib is not gummy nor in any way adhesive, but powders easily—avoiding the abomination of a pen clogged with a sticky mess of half-dry mud, characteristic of the use of Indian ink. Ebony stain is sold in substantial stone bottles, and so does not readily become thick; but when, owing to any cause, it does not run freely enough, a sparing dilution with water restores its fluid properties. Diluted too often or too freely, it becomes of a decided purple-brown tint; but as a good-sized bottle costs only sixpence, and holds enough to last a year, it need not be repeatedly diluted on the score of its cost. It is not a fixed ink, and readily smudges when washed over or spotted with water—so cannot be used in combination with water-colour or flat-washes. Neither can Chinese white be used upon a drawing made in Ebony stain. These are disadvantages that would tell against its use by illustrators who make many alterations upon their work, or who paint in lights on a pen-drawing with body-colour; but for pure pen-drawing, and for straight-away journalistic work, it is invaluable.

Indian ink is the traditional medium. It has the advantage of fixity; lines drawn with it, when once dry, will not smudge when washed over, and, at most, they give but a very slight grey or brown tint to the paper. Indian ink can be bought in sticks and ground with water in a saucer; but there seems to be no reason for any one to go to this trouble, as liquid Indian inks are to be bought in bottles from Messrs. Reeves. The best Indian ink, when freshly ground, gives a fine black line that dries with that bogey of the process-man, a glaze; but lampblack is of a more intense blackness, and dries with a dull surface. Lampblack is easily soluble, and therefore has not the stability of good Indian ink to recommend it. For ordinary use with the pen, it has too much of the pigmental nature, and is very apt to clog the nib and to cause annoyance and loss of time. Lampblack and Ivory-black are better suited to the brush. Hentschel, of 182, Fleet Street, sells an American preparation called “Whiting’s Process-Drawing Ink,” which professes to have all the virtues that should accompany a drawing-ink. It is very abominable, and has an immediate corrosive effect upon pens. The drawing-materials’ shop in King William Street, Strand, sells “Higgins’ American Drawing Ink,” done up in ingeniously contrived bottles. It is well spoken of.

_Encre de Chine Liquide_ is the best liquid Indian ink sold, and is very largely used by draughtsmen. It can be obtained readily at any good colour-shop. It is far preferable to most of the liquid Indian inks prepared by English houses, which when left standing for a few minutes deposit a sediment, and at best are inadequate concoctions of a greenish-grey colour. Messrs. Reeves and Sons have recently introduced a special ink for pen-drawing, which they call “Artists’ Black.” It is as good as any. It is a liquid ink, sold in shilling bottles.

Mr. Du Maurier uses blue-black writing-ink from an inkstand that is always allowed to stand open and receive dust and become half muddy. He prefers it in this condition. Also he generally works upon HP drawing-paper. It is interesting to know this, but to work in blue-black ink is an amiable eccentricity that might prove disastrous to any one following his example. His work is not reproduced by zincography, but by _fac-simile_ wood engraving. It may be laid down as an inflexible rule, if you are beginning the study of pen-drawing, if your work is for hurried newspaper production, or if you have not the control of the reproduction in your own hands, to draw for line-process in the blackest ink and on the whitest paper.

Many architects and architectural draughtsmen, who are accustomed to exhibit pen-drawings of architecture at the Royal Academy, are accustomed to draw in brown inks. Prout’s Brown is generally used, and gives a very pleasing effect to a drawing. It photographs and reproduces readily, but it must always be borne in mind that, if printed in black ink, the reproduction will inevitably be much heavier. Scarlet inks, and even yellow inks, have been used by draughtsmen for special purposes, and are allowable from the photographic point of view; but blue must not be used, being an actinic colour and impossible to photograph.

THE MAKING OF A PEN-DRAWING.