.

Because of the sun and the dry plate, illustrators had to find inks
and methods which would aid the engraver as much as possible. The use
of opaque white as a ground for the mixture of tones, with its
resultant bluish cast in black-and-white drawing, has almost
disappeared. The camera will not find gradations in blue and artists
have found it better to use pure india ink washed out in water,
allowing the white of the paper to serve for high lights. Of course,
opaque has its uses, but it is only after much experience and many
disappointments that an artist can learn just where to use it and how.
Pen-and-ink drawings and crayon drawings on rough paper in which the
crayon is applied direct, and not rubbed, will always please the
engraver most and return the best reproductions; but in this case
cleverness and technique demand the greater notice from the artist if
he would have the result interesting. A successful pen drawing is an
achievement almost equal to an etching and it is unfortunate,
considering the ease with which it may be successfully engraved, that
good pen drawing is so rare.

Black-and-white oil offers an inviting field to the illustrator who
aims at a sense of completeness in his work. Honestly handled, there
is no other method of working that can convey an equal feeling of
solidity and earnestness. By its use an artist can suggest all the
qualities of a full-color painting and impress one with the
last-forever look that thought and study gives to earnest work.

Most drawings for reproduction are worked in wash--why, it is hard to
say. Oil will shine and reflect lights, and the engraver has this to
overcome; but, barring the lightness and appearance of ease that wash
suggests, there is no very apparent difference in the reproductions,
and oil has the advantage of greater simplicity in detail.

For deftness and brilliancy illustrations finished in crayon rubbed
into tones easily surpass those done by other methods, but the process
has the disadvantage of appearing thin in the reproduction, unless
the plate is very carefully tooled and printed.

When the illustrator has chosen his subject and decided on the method
of treatment that will best serve the demands of the story to be
pictured, fully half his labor is completed.

The preliminary sketches necessary to the condensing of his ideas open
the door to the real pleasure in his work--standing up a model and
creating therefrom a character is pure joy,