Part 5

In colour printing from wood blocks as many blocks must be made as there are colours, and there must be as many separate printings made from these blocks as there are colours in the printed picture. There must also be an outline block called the key block. Usually in European colour printing, whether from wood blocks, or by lithography, or even process, the colours are printed on top of each other; for example, a blue is printed over a yellow to get green, and at times several colours are superimposed, with the result that colour is lost and mud obtained. The Japanese have shown us how to make colour prints, however, and their method is now adopted by all intelligent colour printers. It consists in making the right colour before it is put on the block, and in placing the colours side by side like a mosaic. The work is done somewhat in this way; the artist makes his drawing, several tracings (as many as there are colours) are made from it, and one extra tracing must be made of the outline only. Or rather the outline alone is cut on the block, other blocks are then made for each colour, or the parts cut out of the same block; one will contain all the red, another all the blue, a third the yellow, and so on. They must be very accurately cut, so as to fit together and print truly, and you can see from Japanese prints how wonderfully well the work is done. Of course the editions from such blocks are very limited, and on this account, like etchings, often vary, the printers having tried experiments in colour. The grain of the wood is taken advantage of in printing, as it often gives a lovely pattern; a good printer will wash in gradated skies with the backgrounds, and no matter how wonderfully they are worked, if of the same colour, are printed usually from the same block. The Japanese, I believe, use water-colours; certainly the French and English, who have tried to imitate them, do, putting the colour, mixed with a little size or gum, on the face of the block with a sponge; in fact they are printed water-colours. Several Frenchmen have obtained in this way most notable results. Very similar was the fashion of colour printing called chiaroscuro, used in the early part of the century. The trouble with this was that the oil with which the inks were mixed, either ran, or spoiled the pages, or did not dry well. Drawings on grey paper in chalk can be wonderfully imitated in this way, and there are methods of using steel and copper plates, bitten into relief to get outlines or tints, which were also employed. To-day in the printing of wood engravings and process blocks by steam, at many thousands an hour, the same system of colour printing, by placing the colours side by side, is being attempted, for it is impossible to obtain fine tone or rich effect by placing one colour on top of another, even in slow printing by hand, while it is absurd to attempt it rapidly by steam. In the most successful attempts yet made, those of the _Le Quotidien Illustré_ and _Le Rire_, Paris papers, colour printing from process blocks has been most successfully done, and I do not doubt that in a very few years colour printing in magazines and newspapers will be very general.

As I have said, all intelligent printers have now come to the conclusion that simple flat colours, put on side by side, will alone give good artistic results; they have only learned this, however, after going quite to the other extreme: after trying to get pure colour and rich effects by using the three primary colours on top of each other, they obtained but crudeness, vulgarity, and mud.

Photography and chemistry are useful in art, but art cannot be created by these means. It may be that some one, some day, will be able to photograph a picture in colour, but there is as yet no evidence of it.

Wood engravings may also be made by scraping or lowering the fronts or backs of blocks, and rich, soft, fat effects can be produced. Very little has been done, I think, with these lowered blocks, some remarkable examples of which can be seen in Chatto and Jackson's "History of Wood Engraving."

Photography has aided the artist very much in wood engraving (though most engravers say it has not), and especially in colour printing it can be made great use of; as, instead of tracing a design on to several blocks, it can be photographed, thus ensuring accuracy--though the Japanese obtained this without any photographic aids--and saving much time.

Still, that is about as far as it goes at present, and photography will never supersede art, though it is engaged in a famous struggle with artlessness.

LECTURE VII.

_LITHOGRAPHY._

Lithography, for some time the rival of metal engraving and even for a time of wood, was invented at the end of the last century, and, as its name implies, is the art of drawing or writing upon stone. Briefly, a peculiar grained stone, found in Germany, may be drawn upon with greasy chalk or ink; afterward it is slightly etched, only washed really, with weak nitric acid and water to fix the drawing and somewhat reduce the surface of the stone; if the stone be now covered with gum, allowed to dry, and then inked, the ink adheres only to the drawing; and if a sheet of paper is placed on it, and the whole passed through a press, a print, or rather the drawing in ink, will come off on the paper. This is roughly the art of lithography.

The most important consideration for you, however, is the making of the drawing. This may be done in one of two ways: either upon the stone itself, or upon transfer paper specially coated, so that the entire drawing is transferred from the paper on which it is drawn, by mechanical means, to the stone, and not merely a print from the original drawing. For many reasons it would probably be best to draw upon the stone itself always; because, first and above all, the less intervention--even mechanical intervention--there is between the artist and his work, the better; and in many cases it is not possible to get good results unless the artist works on the stone. But if one has to make a large drawing out of doors, it is obviously impossible to carry about a big and heavy stone with one; therefore lithographic transfer paper must be used if the work is to be done from nature.

Before this paper was perfected (it is very good now, and can be obtained from Hughes & Kimber of West Harding Street, though Belfont's of Paris is the best), the artist either copied his sketches, studies, or pictures himself, on the stone, if he understood lithography; or else his drawings were copied for him by some other artists who were trained lithographers. One most notable example of this is to be found in J. F. Lewis's "Alhambra." The originals by Lewis were redrawn on the stone by J. D. Harding, J. Lane, and W. Ganci, as well as by Lewis himself; inevitably some of these men's individuality was apparent, and even in the case of Lewis, much must have been lost by copying his own designs; and if original work is given to professional lithographers, in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred all the real character is taken out of it. To-day, however, one may draw upon transfer paper, being careful only not to touch it with one's fingers, either in lithographic chalk or lithographic ink, which is only the chalk rubbed down and put on with a pen or brush, on this paper, which should be fastened down like an oil sketch, in a box having a cover, by drawing pins. Take the drawing to the printer; he will put it on the stone and print it for you far better than you can do it yourself; still this is rather expensive, as the transferring of the drawing to the stone and pulling a few proofs will cost you about a guinea. But if your design can be drawn in your own studio, or at the lithographer's, on the stone, it is not only much simpler, but the result may be better, and you can employ more varied methods of work. For example, you may draw with the lithographic crayon--Lemercier's are the best; get them at Lechertier & Barbe's--just as you would with ordinary chalk or crayon. For if the stone is grained like paper, the design, if well printed, should look almost exactly like a drawing on paper. On a smooth or ungrained stone you may draw or write with pen or brush and lithographic ink, which is only the crayon rubbed down with gum arabic, or ammonia and water, as you would rub down Indian ink, only you must heat the saucer in which you are rubbing it, a little. When you have done this, use Gillott's lithographic pens, putting the ink on the pen with a brush, or use a trimmed sable brush brought to a fine point; you must make your lines carefully, and get your ink of the right consistency, otherwise it tends to blot and spread or smear. Again, you may mix more of the medium with the rubbed-down crayon. I should say it rubs, when warm, without water; this medium may be obtained ready mixed from Way & Sons, Wellington Street, Strand; paint with it as you would in water colours, adding more of the medium or more ink as you wish little or much colour. I have tried only a couple of experiments in this way, and they were both complete failures. The trouble I found was this: in making light tones, the moment the brush charged with colour touches the stone, the stone itself turns much darker than the colour you are putting on it; and as it dries out very slowly, the making of a wash drawing is a most tedious process, unless one has had enough experience of the work to know just the effect of the finished drawing, or rather just the effect of the wash applied, which cannot be seen in its proper tone, while working on the stone, since the appearance the stone presents so long as it is wet is absolutely different to what it will look like when dry, and it is almost impossible to work over washes, because the colour floats off if they are gone over again, or at least smudges and smears; still, corrections and additions can be made with the crayon point, and the whole design brought pretty well together. The best work in wash has been done by Lunois, a Frenchman. Corrections are at all times difficult to make in lithographs, the error having to be scratched out and the stone repaired in that spot, before the new work can be put in again.

Stump drawings may be made by getting the crayon in powder and smearing it on the stone in masses with a rag. Effects can be obtained by removing too much colour with ordinary scrapers and putting in modelling with stumps and the point of the crayon; or all three of the methods I have mentioned may be combined, as they often are, on the same stone, notably in the work of Hervier.

Tints may be obtained by stippling and splatter work, as in pen drawings. There is a machine called an air brush, used by lithographers for this purpose, but the introduction of mechanical dodges has done much to harm lithography.

Zinc may be grained and drawn upon in the same way; why this metal is not more generally used, I do not know, for it is much lighter, more portable, and can be easily mounted on a plain stone to print from.

Until lately it was maintained that only what was drawn on stone could be got off it in a print. But Mr. Goulding, the etching printer, who has been making a series of experiments, says he can get almost as much variety of effect, by wiping the surface of the stone carefully, in a small number of prints, as he can from a copper plate (_see_ Lecture on the printing of Etchings). Still, for you, the process ordinarily will end with the drawing. Even the transferring is only to be successfully done by skilled workmen, and until you can print an etching decently, it would be scarcely worth while to try a lithograph.

Considering that the process is perfectly autographic, that the materials are few and cheap, it is strange that it is so little employed at present. But a very serious attempt is being made to revive it, and as an artist like Mr. Whistler is the leader and initiator, I believe it will be successful.

Colour printing by lithography, though very complicated, might be tried by you; as many stones must be prepared for transferring the design, made either on paper or stone, from the paper to stone, or from one stone to another, as there are colours, and only that part of the design which is of one colour must appear on one stone; if you try to get colour prints in the usual fashion by printing one colour over the other, you will obtain the usual commercial muddling lithographic appearance. But if you mix your own colours for the lithographer, and have the colours placed side by side, in flat masses like the Japanese block prints (_see_ Wood Engraving Lecture), you should get good results.

There are endless other processes and methods of work, but they are all more or less complicated, and require special training and special tools, and even machinery, and one who wishes to pursue the subject further must go to a lithographer and learn the trade.

But in order to get artistic effects only, one has but to draw or paint on paper or stone as one would ordinarily. The means are most simple, and the results should be most interesting.

LECTURE VIII.

_ETCHING._

In all the various methods of making illustrations to which I have so far called your attention, it was necessary that some part of the work should be done by a specially trained craftsman, at least if any practical and commercial result was desired.

Now in etching, the more you yourselves do and the less any one else does, the better should be the result.

An etching is, in its narrowest sense, a print from a metal plate into which a design has been bitten or eaten by acid; again, in most of the other methods, the printing was from relief blocks like type, and therefore those illustrations could be printed with type. Now we have to consider another sort of work, namely, intaglio, or incised, or sunken work not printed from the surface, but from lines cut below it, and therefore unavailable for letterpress printing. Of course it would be easy to make a relief block in metal, or an incised block of wood, to reverse the treatment in printing, but it would not be natural or right.

The whole difference is this: if a wood block has a line cut in the surface and the whole face is inked with a roller, the line will print white and the rest of the block black. If the etching plate is inked and cleaned off, as is always done, it will print white; if a line is cut in it, the ink will remain in that and produce a black line. Of course they must be printed in appropriate presses.

In its broadest sense an etching may be produced in any one of a number of ways, by the artist, on a metal plate which may be printed from.

It is never a process or mechanical engraving, and never was and never will be, and the attempt to palm off mechanical blocks or plates is a swindle and a humbug.

Etchings are produced in the following manner; at least this is the best and simplest method.

A plate of highly polished copper, zinc, or even steel, iron, or aluminium is obtained from the makers, William Longman, of Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, or from Messrs. Hughes & Kimber, West Harding Street, Fetter Lane, or Messrs. Roberson, 99, Long Acre. Copper, however, is the best and almost universally used. This should be carefully cleaned with a soft rag and whiting; then it should be gripped by a vice with a wooden handle, in one corner, care being taken to put a piece of soft paper between the vice and the plate to keep the teeth of the former from scratching it; heated, either upon an iron frame with a spirit or Bunsen lamp under it, or over the gas, until, if you take a ball of etching ground and touch the plate with it, the ground melts. This ground is made of resin, wax, and gum; the best is made by Sellers in England and Cadart in France. All these materials can be bought of Roberson or Hughes & Kimber. Touch the hot plate in several places with the ground. It should melt at once; then take an American etching roller (which I think you can only obtain at Roberson's) and go over the plate rapidly with it in every direction, until the little masses of melted ground have been spread evenly and thinly in a film all over it. With a little practice you should be able to do this in a couple of minutes, and you can lay in this way (which is unknown virtually in England) a thinner, harder, more even and very much better ground, with less trouble, than in any other. Heat the plate again a little more, and take a bundle of wax tapers twisted together by heating them, light them and pass them under the face of the plate held, varnished side downwards, by the vice; do not touch the plate with the taper, or the varnish, being still melted, will come off, but go rapidly back and forward, allowing the flame only to touch the surface. In a few minutes the varnish will have been completely blackened by the smoke. Next, take a bottle of stopping-out varnish (which you may as well buy; don't bother to make it) and cover the back and edges of the plate. If this is done while the plate is hot, it dries very fast, and as soon as the plate is cool it is ready to work on.

This is the first stage. The waxy ground is put on to protect the plate from the acid with which it is to be bitten, and it must be so well made and well put on, that one can draw through it, without tearing it up and without any resistance; also it must adhere firmly to the plate, where it is not drawn through, and must resist the acid perfectly in the untouched parts. The smoking is done to enable you to see your lines in the copper, light on dark; this is rather curious at first, but you will get used to it. The stopping-out varnish is also to protect the plate, and is only a cheaper sort of ground dissolved in oil of lavender or ether. When the plate is cool, it should be of a brilliant uniform black, and if there are any dull, smoky-looking places on it, the ground is burnt. Here the ground may be rubbed off, or will show cracks, if you touch it, in these places, and the varnish should be cleaned off the face with turpentine, the plate carefully dried and regrounded. Otherwise the varnish will either crack while you are drawing on it, or come off in the bath of acid, and your work will be spoiled.

You draw upon the varnished plate with needles or points; any steel points will do, from a knitting-needle to the best big point you can get. The small needles invented by Mr. Whistler I find the best; but this is a personal liking. They are of all shapes and sizes. You may commence and draw in your entire subject, only remembering that you must leave your foreground lines further apart than those in the distance.

You may make your drawing either with the same needle, all over, or with needles of different sizes; for though one half of the art is in the drawing, the other half, and the really characteristic half, is in the biting. There is very little to be said about the drawing, save that you must draw just as well as ever you can; you will find out almost immediately that you have the most responsive tool in your fingers, and that you can work with it in any direction. Do not bother, if you use the same needle, because the drawing looks flat, and the lines are of the same width; the biting will fix all that. Draw away; if you are afraid to tackle the copper straight away with a point, paint your design on it, with a little Chinese white, or, if you have a pencil drawing of the subject, you may make a tracing from it, and go over that, transferring it to the plate; or you may turn the drawing face down and run it through a copper plate press; the drawing will come off on the varnished surface in reverse, and if you are doing a portrait of a place you must otherwise reverse it yourself. If you wish to sketch from nature in reverse, put up a mirror on an easel, and turn your back to the subject, drawing from the picture in the mirror, for, you must remember, that any subject drawn, as you see it, on a copper plate, or even a wood-block, prints in reverse.

Next, to bite or etch the drawing into the copper plate, take equal parts of nitric acid and water and mix them in a glass-stoppered bottle, some hours before you wish to use the mixture, for there is enough heat produced by the chemical action to melt the ground if it is used at once.

Or have a quantity of what is known as Dutch mordant made; this is composed of--

Two parts Chlorate of Potash, Ten parts Hydrochloric Acid, Eighty-eight parts water.

Next, get an ordinary photographer's porcelain or rubber bath or tray; lay the plate in it, pour the acid over it; in a few seconds bubbles will arise, in all the lines; brush them away with a feather; leave the plate, if there is any fine work on it, in the bath for only two or three minutes, say for a light sky; take it out with rubber finger-tips or a stick, for the acid will burn your fingers and a drop will rot your clothes, staining them light yellow; wash the plate thoroughly in clean water, dry it carefully with blotting-paper. Take some of your stopping-out varnish, thin it with a little (a very little) turpentine, paint over the very lightest parts of the drawing with a camel's-hair brush dipped in the diluted varnish, and thus stop them out--that is, stop them from biting any more by painting them with the varnish. Wait till the places where you have painted the varnish are thoroughly dry; then put the plate in the bath again and bite the next stronger, nearer set of lines; of course, save where the lines are covered by the stopping-out varnish, they will keep on biting. Continue biting and stopping out till you get to the foreground, where the lines should now be quite broad and deep; take off the ground front and back by washing it with a rag dipped in turpentine, dry it, and the plate is ready to print from.

Another method is to commence by drawing in the darks, biting them, then drawing in the middle distance, the darks going on biting all the while, and finally the extreme distance, when the whole plate will be biting together; by this method no stopping out is necessary, but in working out of doors it is awkward to carry baths and acid around with one, otherwise one must run back to the studio, to bite between each stage. But these two methods can be mixed up, and frequently are, and you may also work in the bath, drawing lines through or over others, thus getting richness while the biting is going on. The bad fumes which are given off during the biting are not dangerous. In working with the Dutch mordant, which bites slower than nitric acid and makes no bubbles, but bites straight down, while nitric acid enlarges the lines laterally, you will inhale much of the fumes, but they won't hurt you. Although you do not see any action with the Dutch mordant, brush the lines with a feather, else a deposit is formed and they will bite unevenly.

It is very difficult to tell when a plate is well bitten, the biting is very difficult, but on taking it out of the bath and holding it on a level with your eye, you can see the bitten lines; you can also feel the biting with a needle, and you may take off a bit of the varnish with your thumb-nail or turpentine and look at the lines, re-covering them again with the stopping-out varnish; but after this, of course, they will not bite in that place.