Part 5
When the photograph you desire to color is mounted on a card, first immerse it in _boiling hot water_. This will soften the paste, and in a short time the print may be lifted from the mount. Do not hurry, but give the print a thorough soaking before trying to lift it from the card, and always use great care to avoid tearing the photograph. Rinse the picture in cold water to clean it from the paste and coloring matter that may adhere to it from the card. Let it remain in the vessel of clear water until ready for mounting on the glass. Prepare a little thin starch paste, as follows. Amylum (Refined Corn Starch) a teaspoonful, cold water 2 ounces, or nitrate strontium ⅛ ounce; stir till dissolved, then bring it to a boil, stirring constantly.
Have the starch paste _thin_ and strain it through fine muslin. Having cleaned your Convex Glass _thoroughly_ with alcohol and a piece of cotton batting, take the photograph and blot off the surplus water. Paste the face of the print and the concave or hollow side of the cleaned glass with your starch, being very careful to cover both the print and glass smoothly. A wide bristle brush is most suitable for this work. Lay the print on the glass, the prepared surfaces together, and proceed carefully to work the bubbles out with your fingers, after which lay two or three thicknesses of tissue paper on the print, and with an ivory paper-knife, or flat stick, with curve about the same as the concave surface of the glass, work the print down to the glass, forcing out all the air. Work from the centre of the glass toward the edges, and with great care, using very light pressure to avoid breaking the glass. The mounting of the print should be done quickly, as the paste dries very fast. If any bubbles should remain, prick them through with a fine-pointed needle and rub over with the ivory knife. After mounting the picture on the glass allow it to dry thoroughly. Now fill the concave or hollow side of the glass having the picture on, with Castor Oil three parts, Oil Lavender one part. Allow the oil to remain until the photograph is transparent; this will take from three to twelve hours. When perfectly transparent, pour off the oil and wipe with a fine sponge until nearly dry. Your picture is now ready for painting.
The colors applied directly to the photograph are those that need no blending—such as the eyes, lips, jewelry, light ribbons, flower ornaments and neck-tie. Edges of ruffles and embroidery should also be touched up on the photograph. When you have finished coloring the picture on the first glass, pour Glycerine over it, being careful to cover the surface thoroughly. Drain off and then put the other convex glass to the back of the one having the print, and wedge apart from it by attaching little pieces of card-board to the second glass with mucilage.
Have the wedges very narrow and close to the edge. This separates the glasses and keeps the upper one from pressing the oiled and painted glass below. On this second glass you will color the face and other flesh, hair, drapery, and, if necessary, the background. The miniature is finished by using card-board to back up the picture, white being very effective.
Bind the edges of the glass and card-board together with strips of adhesive paper.
CAUTION! Don’t use Silver Gloss Starch; it will not do nearly as well as Corn Starch.
DIRECTIONS FOR COLORING.
The coloring of the eyes, lips, jewelry, ribbons, edges of embroidery, lace, neck-tie, flowers, and other ornaments, is applied directly on the photograph after it is mounted on the glass and made translucent with the oil.
EYES—Use small brush. BLUE EYES—Use Prussian Blue mixed with little Ivory Black. BROWN EYES—Use Vandyke Brown. GREY OR HAZEL EYES—Prussian Blue mixed with Vandyke Brown and Silver White.
LIPS—Use Rose Madder.
JEWELRY—Yellow Ochre for Gold, Silver White for Pearls, Emerald Green for Emeralds, Rose Madder for Rubies.
RIBBONS—Whatever color is required. Flowers and other ornaments the same.
The color for Flesh, Hair, Drapery and Background is applied to the concave surface of the clear glass which is placed over the mounted print.
FLESH—Use Vermilion, Silver White and Chrome Yellow; mix to suit. For children use Rose Madder or Carmine in place of Vermilion. For dark complexions dull the color by adding Vandyke Brown.
HAIR—For blonde hair, use half Naples Yellow and Vandyke Brown. For lights, use Naples Yellow. Brown Hair, Vandyke Brown. Black Hair, Ivory Black and Silver White, adding a little Prussian Blue. For Grey Hair, use Silver White, Naples Yellow, Black, Burnt Sienna, and a little Prussian Blue.
DRAPERY—Whatever color suits.
BACKGROUND—Your own judgment will suggest the proper color to use.
If you want to change the work in any way, take a small piece of cloth, dipped in turpentine, and remove the color.
For home work and adornment it offers special attractions. The photographs of relatives and friends can be made into Oil-Photo Miniatures, done by your own hands, and handsomely furnished for the mantel and wall at small expense.
We have given you the _simplest_ and _best_ process for making the picture. It is claimed by some that when the oil is used it dries out after a time, and produces opaque spots. Should this trouble appear, it is easily overcome by using glycerine as previously directed. We herewith give you another method in use, and you can adopt whichever you see fit.
SECOND METHOD. IVORY-TYPE OR MEZZOTINT.
FOR MOUNTING THE PHOTOGRAPH.—Isin-glass (fish glue) made in the following proportion: One teaspoonful to half cup of water, dissolved by boiling; strain through fine muslin, and apply the same as starch. Pure Albumen, or white of egg, brushed over the glass and surface of the photograph, is used with great success by some. Equal parts Canada balsam and turpentine is also used for attaching the print to the glass. Rubber varnish, made with pure rubber, dissolved in benzole. Some add a little Cooper’s glue to the starch when making it. Dextrine is a favorite with many.
After the use of the castor oil, castor oil and glycerine, poppy oil, nut, or any of the oils, the print may be covered with a coating of Damar varnish, which it is claimed holds the oil and preserves the transparency. Many artists after oiling or varnishing, use water colors mixed with ox-gall in coloring on the back of the print, then follow with the oil colors as directed. In adopting any of the methods herein noted, your judgment will dictate care in observing the results, and suggesting changes that may facilitate the work, and success of the picture. You will find this art very attractive, simple, and productive of both pleasure and profit. Ladies are occupying leisure hours, and making home attractive with their artistic work in producing the Miniature.
By the first process pictures have stood for years without spotting or cracking.
ANOTHER PLAN IS: After cleaning the photograph, blot off the surplus water and place it in alcohol, let it remain until transparent. Old, faded pictures can be brought out clear in this way. After placing it on glass, cover the print with “paraffine,” and let it lie for a short time in the sun, until crystalized, when it is ready to receive the colors. You may use water colors on the first glass with good effect.
“By this simple process any person unaccustomed to painting, and ignorant of art, may color photographs, and produce with rapidity and little trouble, effective, permanent, and beautiful pictures, so soft and delicate as to closely resemble painting on enamel; may render the treasured family portrait doubly valuable by adding the warm tints of life to the faithful but cold and deathlike production of the photographer, and produce a pleasing as well as a truthful representation. The largest and the smallest work may be painted with equal facility, the life-size portrait or a miniature for a locket, the only qualification for success, even in very elaborate pictures, being taste in the arrangement of the colors. An objection to coloring photographs, as coloring has hitherto been practiced—that the delicate truthfulness of nature’s drawing was injured, and sometimes a likeness wholly destroyed, through being obscured by the colorist in the working, that the only guarantee of fidelity was the talent of the artist—in the beautifully simple process under consideration with which all the softness, lights, and shadows of the photographs are preserved.”
THE ART OF COLORING PHOTOGRAPHS IN WATER COLORS.
Select a well-defined Photograph, one of light color is preferable, and the background free from spots; it is also well to have a duplicate copy to refer to in case of necessity—a copy of two different sittings. Always select a good subject, as a good portrait depends much on a good model. In sitting for a photograph, take your own natural and easy position several feet in front of the background, with your eyes a trifle above the camera. Avoid all superfluous surroundings, such as fancy chairs, table covered with books and other objects, making your face a secondary affair in the picture.
=Preparing the Photograph.= Take a piece of White Glue about the size of a hickory nut, and about one-half the quantity of pulverized alum; dissolve in half a wine-glass of warm water and it is ready for use. Apply the mixture with a flat camel-hair brush to the photograph; cover the entire face of the picture, care being taken not to get it too wet. When dry, wash it in clean cold water with a sponge to remove any superfluous matter that may rest upon it. It may be necessary to go over it a second time, as it is essential that the paper be well hardened to work upon. You may test it by applying a drop of the color to one corner and if it washes off and leaves no stain the paper is in good condition for the work. Albumen paper can often be worked without using this preparation, but should be sponged off with cold water.
The colors used are in cakes: Dry Carmine, Rose Madder, Crimson Lake, Venetian Red, Indian Red, Vermilion, Chrome Yellow, Indian Yellow, Roman Ochre, Gamboge, Cobalt, French Blue, Emerald Green, Indigo, Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Sepia (Brown), Vandyke Brown, Madder Brown, Ivory Black, Chinese White, Constant White.
Burnt Umber, mostly used for the hair; Vandyke Brown is one of the most used of browns, although Sepia may be said to be the _most_ useful in black silk and satin, when mixed with Lake, Indigo and Gamboge; Sepia and Lake for the eyebrows and hair; Sepia and Indigo form a gray, very nice for background. Of Red, Carmine is the most brilliant; Rose Madder the most useful in flesh, especially in youths; in elder persons add Vermilion; Crimson Lake is very useful for flesh tints; Light Red, Venetian and Indian Red can be used for nearly the same purpose.
=Coloring.= Commence upon the face with the flesh tints, using for this a good size Sable brush; go over the entire face and wait till dry. Use for the lips a little Vermilion and Lake. Now go over the background, and then the draperies. Deepen the Carnations, touching the eye and mouth with Lake; also the hair with the proper color. Touch the under lip with Rose Madder enough so as it may look natural. The white of the eye in youth is nearly blue, in old age it becomes yellow, in middle age it is white. You must vary your tints to correspond.
The iris must be laid in with transparent color, then shaded, then finished with Chinese White. The pupil is touched with a dark color and the speck of white laid on last. Use the same color for black or brown as used for the hair, viz.: Light Red and Chinese White, and neutral or Purple tint and White for the latter. The face is now nearly finished; it only remains to add a few touches to the eyes and mouth, and impart life and expression to the countenance. If the person be dark, use Sepia and Purple Lake, equal proportions; but if fair, dispense with most of the Sepia. Next complete the background, after which finish up the hair over the background; after the last shaded parts of the hair lay on the high lights. Burnt Umber is most useful in brown and auburn hair; Indigo, Sepia and Lake, or Lake, Indigo and Gamboge, are the colors used for high lights, the lights inclining to a purple tint, the blue predominating. Keep the hair in masses; a good sized brush is needed. In painting cloth fabrics it will be well to use the local color at first very light, much more so than you desire it to be when finished. A black coat: begin by laying in a weak local wash as directed, and when it is dry go over the folds with a thin shadow color, which will prevent them being obscured by the next local wash. Having repeated this two or three times, you will find the garment to be as dark as necessary, but the shadows will be feeble; you may strengthen them with Sepia and Lake. A good black for gentlemen’s drapery is made of Indigo, Lake and Gamboge. When a blue-black is required, first make a purple-blue and then add the Gamboge till the tint is changed into black. In shadowing, always carry your pencil the way the folds run, instead of across them. The colors for backgrounds for fair people are blue, purple and greys. Dark complexions should have dark background. Stone is represented by a tint formed of Carmine, Indigo and Yellow Ochre, and the more distant you wish it to appear the more must the Indigo prevail. A background made of Cobalt, Burnt Sienna and a little Rose Madder works well. Madder Brown and Cobalt answers for the same. A purple cloudy ground is made of Indigo and liquid Carmine or Lake. An opaque ground, of a chocolate color, is composed of Lampblack and India Red.
Paint curtains over the background and put on the lights with body colors.
RUSSIAN, OR EGYPTIAN METHOD
OF COLORING PHOTOGRAPHS
WITH TRANSPARENT INDELIBLE COLORS.
This is the “biggest little thing” in painting that probably has ever been presented to amateur artists. For beauty of arrangement, ease and simplicity in its execution, no branch of art work of a similar nature has ever met with like success. With a fair idea of colors and their application, you may increase the beauty and enhance the value ten fold of any ordinary photograph, by following these instructions. To produce a first-class picture, you must necessarily have a good subject to work on. A photograph that will take a variety of colors, is best adapted for a showy picture.
Before applying the colors to a burnished or finished photograph, soften or cleanse the surface with the tongue until the saliva wets the picture evenly, without crawling; oxide gall is good, but saliva is the best for this purpose.
For a palette on which to mix or dilute colors, the bottom of a plate or saucer will answer. Always have a piece of blotting paper at hand to take up or remove superfluous paint from the picture, and use it after each application of color to the photograph.
It is not necessary to mix paints on a palette, washing one color over another will produce better results. A tint is a color absorbed in the picture, and washing or wetting will not remove it. A surface color remains on top, and water will remove it. You can use colors stronger over the shadows. Use just what liquid you will find on the cork of the bottle, added to about one teaspoonful of water, for flesh; for draperies you can use it stronger, or as you desire.
The liquid colors are mostly used, and consist of twelve one ounce bottles, and are very powerful. Therefore, make your application very weak, a mere tint only is required. Repeat the washing or tinting until the desired shade is produced. The colors used are as follows: Black, Red, Blue, Green, Carmine, Gold, Brown, Violet, Orange, Purple and Lemon, all of which are transparent, soluble in water, and used as tinting colors. White is a surface color, and opaque.
For Flesh—Use first a weak wash or tint of gold; over this a tint of red, a little stronger for the lips.
White—This is always used last for high lights; you can make the white any tint by use of other colors.
Black—Can be used for a natural tint if toned down; valuable for all kinds of shading.
Red—Takes readily, and produces all tints from rose to scarlet; used in flesh.
Carmine—A delicate pink to magenta.
Gold—Takes readily; is a substitute for yellow; used for jewelry, flesh, blonde hair, etc.; use weak, and wash over with red for deeper results.
Brown—Takes readily; darkened by tinting over with violet or black.
Violet—Takes on touch, and is very powerful; first application very weak to insure even coloring; it makes all tints from lilac to purple, etc.
Blue—Takes slowly; repeat the washing for deep results.
Green—Takes easily, lighten by washing over with gold; darken with the blue; always let your first wash or tint be very weak; increase as desired by repeating.
The colors in moist cake form are often used, but the liquids are preferable. Sable brushes, about Nos. 3, 8 and 12, are sufficient for ordinary purposes.
HOW TO MAKE PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE GELATINE DRY-PLATE PROCESS
The latest and =most= rapid advance in the art is due to the discovery of the sensitiveness of a gelatine film. This knowledge has been practically applied in the introduction of plates prepared with such a coating; they are called “dry plates,” to distinguish them from plates which must pass through the silver bath, and be used while wet. The gelatine-bromide dry plates are now in general use for taking pictures of out-door scenes, landscapes, houses, groups of people, etc. To make photographs, =First Procure an Outfit= from a dealer in photograph requisites, costing from ten to twenty-five dollars, consisting of a view camera, for making 4×5 or 5×8 inch pictures. This camera is so constructed as to make either a picture on the full size of the plate (5×8 inches), or by substituting the extra front (supplied with the outfit), and using the pair of lenses of shorter focus, it is admirably adapted for taking stereoscopic negatives. Also, by the same arrangements, two small pictures, of dissimilar objects, can be made on the same plate. Included in the outfit, are also one patent double dry-plate holder, one large achromatic nickel plated lens, one pair “Waterbury” achromatic matched stereoscopic lens, one Taylor folding tripod, one carrying case.
=Filling the Plate Holder.= If this is done in the daytime, a closet or room is selected, and all white light excluded from it. It is difficult to make this exclusion absolute. One ray of white light will spoil a sensitive plate, and therefore the evening is generally chosen to develop negatives, and for illumination, the light from a ruby lantern is employed.
Gelatine Plates are glass, with one side coated with gelatine, containing a haloid salt. Place one of them in a dry-plate holder, with the sensitive (or the coated) side facing outward. Handle the plates by the edge, between the thumb and fore finger, without touching the sides. After putting into the holders as many plates as are needed for the day’s work, pack the outfit so that it can be carried about.
=Taking the Picture.= For field service a camera, a number of plate holders, filled with sensitive plates, a lens, tripod, carrying case, and focussing cloth are needed. When these have been taken to the place which you want to photograph, fasten the camera on the tripod, throw the focussing cloth over your head, gather it under your chin, draw out the back of the camera, thus extending the bellows, and continue the movement until the image on the ground glass appears distinct, then fasten the back of the camera. This is called “focussing.” At the first glance, an inexperienced person sees no reflection on the ground glass, but the eye soon becomes practiced to perceiving the inverted image there. Substitute a plate holder for the ground glass, see that the cap is on the lens, pull the slide out of the holder, place it on the top of the camera, or in a convenient place. If everything is now in readiness, and the time for exposing the sensitive plate determined, uncap the lens, re-capping it at the end of the allotted time, and replacing the slide in the holder. After you have picture impressions on each sensitive film, pack your outfit and return home.
=Making Negatives.= Amateurs may content themselves with making the exposures, and sending their plates in a light, tight, negative box, to some photographer, who will produce the finished picture, and mount them on cards. It is not necessary that this should be done at once, months may elapse, and these dry plates be carried hundreds of miles.
The chemical outfit for making negatives comprises the following items: Two vulcanite trays, a glass graduate, a set of small scales, and weights for weighing chemicals, a ruby lantern, a bottle of varnish, a package of dry plates and of chemicals, a small quantity of bromide of ammonium, neutral oxalate of potash, protosulphate of iron, hyposulphite of soda, alum, and sulphuric acid. These chemicals are not dangerous, neither will they injure any one who handles them, and they do not emit offensive odors. Silver stains, and the disagreeable smell of collodion belong to the old or “wet” process.