Secrets Concerning Colors and Painting.

Main Title, Index and Introduction

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§ I.  To Paint In Varnish On Wood.  Useful To Carriage Painters.

I.  The preparations previous to the laying of colours, and the general process observed in laying them on it.
    1.  You must first lay on the wood two coats of Troyes-white, diluted with size-water.  Next lay over these a third coat of ceruse.  Then mix the colour you want with turpentine oil, add the varnish to it, and lay it on the wood, previously prepared as follows.
    2.  Polish the wood, first with shave-grass or horse tail, and then with pounce stone.  Lay afterwards six or seven coats of colour mixed with varnish, allowing after each coat a sufficient time to try, before laying on the next; then polish over the last coat with pounce stone, grinded on marble, into a subtile powder.  When this is done, lay two or three coats of pure white varnish.  As soon as this is dry, rub it over with a soft rag, dipped into fine olive oil, then rub it over with a soft rag, dipped into fine olive oil, then rub it with tripoly reduced into subtile powder, and having wiped with a clean piece of linen, pass a piece of wash leather all over it.

II.  To make a black.
    1.  The black is made with lamp or ivory black, grinded on a marble stone, with vinegar and water, till it is reduced into the most impalpable powder.  Keep it in a bladder.
    2.  There is a sort of black which, from its hue, may be termed a velvet black.  This is made of sheep trotter bones, burnt and reduced by grinding, like the other black, into an impalpable powder.  Keep it the same as the other.

III.  To make a blue.
    Burnt turnsol mixed with quick lime and water, then sized with leather size, makes the blue.

IV.  To make the Gridelin.
    Grind cochineal with whitelead and a little Venetian lake.  According as you put more or les of this last ingredient, you make it darker or clearer.

§ II.  To Paint On Paper

VI.  To make a fine yellow.
    You must boil some kermes in water impregnated with orpine.

VII.  To make a green.
    A mixture of verdigrease, sap green, Hungarian green, and tervette.  The whole grinded on marble with a pretty strong leather size.

VIII.  To transfer a print on vellum, and then paint it.
    Choose your print, and fit a sheet of transparent or varnished paper to it, for width and breadth.  Lay it on the print, and fix it by the four corners and the middle part of the four edges, on that print, by means of a little white wax, the bulk of a pin's head.  Then with a fine lead pencil, sketch out on the varnished paper, all the outlines and turns of the print, which you plainly see through.  When done, rub the back of this varnished paper, all over with red chalk, and carrying it on the vellum, fix it on it, as you did on the print.  Then with a wooden or ivory blunt point, pass over all the strokes which are delineated on the varnished paper, the red chalk of the back will set off in all those parts, and lie on the vellum, where on you will find the print perfectly sketched, and fit to receive what colours you like.

§ III.  Compositions For Limners

IX.  How to prepare colours for limning.
    Most colours are prepared, are grinded with gum-arabic.-- Ochre makes the yellow; courant mourant, the white; verdigrease, the green; ceruse, the grey; lampblack, the black; cinnabar, the red; and gold in shell, the gold.

X.  To make what is called lampblack.
    Put a large wick of cotton in a lamp, filled with nut oil, and light it.  Prop over the flame an earthen dish, and now and then visit this dist, and gather all the black which fixed itself to it.

XI.  Another way of making black.
    Burn some nut-shells in an iron pan, and throw them in another full of water.  Then grind them on marble with either oil or varnish.

XII.  To make a blue.
    Whitening grinded with verdigrease will make a very fine blue.

XIII.  To make a turquin blue.
    German trunsol infused for one night in chamber-lye, then grinded with a discretionable quantity of quick-lime, in proportion as you want to have it paler or darker.

XIV.  A fine green for limning.
    Grind some verdigrease, with vinegar, and a very small quantity of tartar; ten add a little quicklime and sap-green, which grind with the rest, and put in shells for keeping.  If it become to hard, dilute it with a drop of vinegar.

XV.  Another for the same purpose.
    Grind on marble stone, verdigrease, and a third of tartar, with white vinegar.

XVI.  To make Sap-green, or blackberry green.
    Express the blackberry juice, when full ripe, add some alum to it, put all in a bladder, and hang in a chimney to dry.

XVII.  To make lake.
    Take three parts of an ounce of Brasil wood; a pint of clear water; one drachm and a half of roch alum; eighteen grains of salt of tartar; the bulk of two filberts of mineral crystal; three quarters of a pound of the whitest sound, or cuttle-fish bones, rasped.  Put all together in a saucepan to boil, till reduced to one third.  Strain it three times trough a coarse cloth.  To make a fine sort, strain it four times.  Then set it in the sun under cover to dry.  That which dries the soonest is the finest.

XVIII.  To make liquid lake.
    Pound some cochineal and alum together; then boil them with a quantity of lemon-peels cut very small.  And when it is come to the right colour you want, pass it through a cloth.

XIX.  Another way.
    On a quantity of alum and cochineal pounded and boiled together, pour drop by drop oil of tartar till it comes to a fine colour.

XX.  For the vermilion.
    Vermilion becomes very fine in aquavitae, or in child's urine.  But it will be still finer, if you put in aquavitae with a little saffron.  It is used with whipped whites of eggs.

XXI.  For the making of carmine.
    1.  Boil two quarts of spring water in a varnished pipkin, and when it boils throw in seven pugils of pulverised chouam.  After this has thrown two or three pugils of autour, in fine powder, and make it throw four bubbles, take it off the fire and decant it in another clean pipkin.  Then put in this water five ounces of cochineal in powder, and boil it for a quarter of an hour.  Add three pugils of autour, in fine powder, and make it throw four bubbles.  Then add three pugils of Roman alum in powder, and take it out directly from the fire, which must be made of live coals.
    2.  Strain all through a linen cloth, and divide this liquor into several delph vessels, and so let it remain for three weeks.-- At the end of that term, pour off the water by inclination.  You will find under a kind of moldiness, which you must carefully pick off, and then gather the carmine.
    Note.  Every five ounces of cochineal give one of carmine.-- It is to be grinded on marble.  A general opinion prevails, that this operation is best done in the crescent of the moon-- How far it is needful to observe this precept, is left to the wise to determine.

XXII.  Colours fit for expressing the various complexions.
    1.  For women and children, mix a little white and a little tunrsol.
    2.  For men, a mixture of white and vermillion is proper.
    3.  For old folks, you must use some white and ochre.
    4.  For horses, you must use bistre, ochre and white.  The dark brown horses require a little addition of black.  The gray want nothing but bistre and white.

§ IV.  To Make Transparent Colours

XXIII.  For the green.
    Put in very strong vinegar, verdigrease, rue-juice, and gum arabic.  Set this in the sun for a fortnight, or , if you have no sun, boil it on the fire.  Strain it, bottle and stop it.  Shake it well before using.

XXIV.  For the red.
    Make a lye with salt of tartar.  In it, put to infuse for one night, some India wood, with a little alum.  Boil all, and reduce to one third.  Run it through a linen cloth, and mix some gum-arabic with it.  With more or less alum, you make it of a higher or paler hue.

XXV.  For the yellow.
    Bruise Avignon seed, called French Berries, and put it in a lye of salt and tartar to boil on the fire, to the reduction of two thirds.  Run it, and boil it one bubble more.  Then bottle and cork it.  It must be shaken before using.  A small addition of saffron renders it more lively.

XXVI.  For the blue.
    Soak in chamber-lye, one night, a quantity of German Palma Christi.  Take it out and grind it with a little quick lime.-- More or less quick lime will raise or lower it in hue.  And nothing more is required to dilute it than chamber-lye and gum arabic.

XXVII.  Another blue, very like ultramarine.
    Grind some indigo on porphyry with turpentine oil.  Put it afterwards in a glazed pipkin, and lute it well.  Let it thus lay for the space of six weeks.  The longer you leave it, the more blue it will be.

XXVIII.  A pale red to paint on enamel.
    1.  Take the filings of a piece of good iron.  Put them in a matrass with aquafortis, and set it on a slow fire.  Let it boil gently till the filings are all dissolved.
    2.  When this is done, pour a little warm water into the matrass, and let it remain a few hours on the fire, then pour all into another vessel.  When the liquor shall be quite clear, decant it out gently, and leave the powder,  which is at the bottom, to dry.
    3.  Put this dried powder in a new crucible well covered and luted, then neal it gently on a very regular fire, and a little while after, take it out and let it cool.
    4.  Now one drachm of that powder, and three of yellow Dutch beads ground with mastich-oil, will give full satisfaction.

XXIX.  Process of making purple, for painting an enamel.
    1.  Take one drachm of very fine gold, forged weak,  Cut in small bits, and neal it.  Put that gold into a matrass, with one ounce of ammoniac salt, and two of good aquafortis, and set it on a gentle fire to run all into liquor.
    2.  Have two ounces of clear water, near boiling, and throw it in the matrass.  This done, pour the whole in a glass phial of more than a quart size, to which add one ounce and a half of out of tartar drop by drop.  It will occasion an ebullition, which being ceased, you must fill the bottle with water, and let it rest till the gold falls to the bottom.
    3.  When the water is quite clear, decant it out gently, for fear of disturbing the gold and losing it.  Then fill the bottle with new water, repeating this operation till the water is as clear when you decant it out, as when you put it in, and has no more smell.
    4. Take your gold out of the bottle, and put it on a fine brown paper, folded in four or five doubles, and turned up by the edges, in form of a little case of mould.  There let it dry, and when dry, keep it for use.
    5.  Grind, nest, some fine white frost glass; mix it with water, put it in a bottle, and shake it, then let it settle. When this powder is fallen to the bottom, decant off the water, and let the powder dry in the vessel.
    6.  The proportion to make the purple colour.  Take three grains only of your aforesaid gold dust to thirty of the white frost-glass, this prepared.  Mix both in a calcedony mortar with clear water.  After the powder has settled to the bottom of the mortar, decant out the water, and let the powder dry in the mortar.
    7.  This done, take the powder out of the mortar, and putting it on a white bit of paper, dry it by a slow fire, till you see it has acquired a fine purple hue.
    8.  Grind, now, this powder with a little oil of spike, and put it in little cases made with darts, of which the edges are turned up.  When the card has soaked the oil, the whole operation is accomplished.  Preserve it, by putting it in small boxes, in a dry place.

XXX.  How to make a fine flesh color.
    9.  The mere addition of a little black to the above composition will make the finest colour for complexions, or flesh-colour, and may justly be deemed a ninth article in the process which is to be observed in its fabrication.

XXXI.  A good way to make carmine.
    Make a little bag, tied very close, of fine Venetian lake.  Put it in a little varnished pipkin, with rain-water and cream of tartar, and boil it to a syrup.  This you will have a fine carmine colour.

XXXII.  For an amber colour.
    To much yellow, add equal quantities of each red and white.

XXXIII.  The whole process of making ultramarine.
    1.  Make some of the brownest lapis red hot in a crucible then throw it into vinegar.  Repeat this three times.  When calcined, pound it in a mortar, and sift it.  Then grind it on porphyry, with a mixture of lintseed oil and spirit of wine, in equal quantities, and previously digested together in a matrass, and often shaken to prepare them for this use.  When you shall have subtilized your lapis powder, then incorporate it with the following cement.
    2.  Lintseed oil, two ounces; Venice turpentine, three; mastich, half a  one; assa faetida, two; black rosin, as much; wax, half an ounce; yellow rosin, three.  Boil all in a glazed pipkin, for a quarter of an hour; then run it through a cloth into clear water.  Take it out of that water; and, taking of this, and of the grinded lapis, equal quantities, incorporated them in a glazed pan, and pour some clean warm water over, and let it rest for a quarter of an hour.  Stir this water with a wooden spatula; and in another quarter of an hour you will see the water all azured.  Decant gently, that water into another glazed pan.  Pour new warm water on the grounds, and proceed as before, continuing to stir and beat it well; then decant again this new azured water with the former.  Repeat doing so, till the water is no more tainted with any azurine particles.  When done, set your azured waters in evaporation, and there will remain at the bottom a very fine Azure of Ultramarine, viz. four ounces of it for every one pound of composition.  Of the remainder you make what is called cender blue.

XXXIV.  Another very fine ultramarine.
    Take the finest lapis lazuli you can find; break it in little bits, and make it red hot in a crucible, between blasting coals.  When red hot, throw it in white wine vinegar; then dry it and pound it  in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle.  Should it not pound easily, calcine it again as before, and throw it again in vinegar, etc. then try it in the mortar, and if it do not pound yet, repeat again the same process, till it easily submits to be pulverised.  After it has been put into a fine powder, grind it on a porphyry stone, with good aquavitae, till it is impalpable.  Then gather it up in little cakes, which set a drying on paper of slates.  When dry, if you pulverise it, you have a fine ultramarine.

XXXV.  A secret to compose a fine blue, for washing, in drawings, instead of ultramarine, which is too dear and too strong to be used for that purpose.
    1.  Gather in the summer, a large quantity or blowart, which grows in the fields among the corn.  Pick well their blue leaves off.  Have lukewarm water impregnated with impalpable powder of alum.  Put the picked blue leaves into a marble mortar, with a sufficient quantity of the alum water, to soak them only.  Then, with either a wooden or marble pestle, pound them, till the whole is so mashed, as to give the juice by expression through a new cloth.  Then strain it over a glass bowl, in which there is water impregnated with the whitest gum-arabic you can find.
    2.  Observe that you must not put much alum in the first water, if you are desirous of preserving the brightness of the colour; for by putting too much of that ingredient, as well as for the water impregnated with it, you darken the tone of the colour.
    3.  Note.  By means of the same process, you may likewise draw the colours from every flower which has any great eclat.  You must not neglect to pound them with alum water, which prevents the colour from suffering any alteration; as it sometimes happens at the very first bruise.
    4.  To render these colours portable, set them a-drying in the shade, in glass vessels, well covered, to fence them against the dust.

XXXVI.  The true secrets of making iris-green.
    1. Take a large quantity of the flowers of that name in the spring.  Pick them; that is to say, pick out the green and the yellow, which are at the bottom of the petal of the flower.  Next to this, pound them in a marble mortar, with a little lukewarm water, impregnated with alum.  When pounded, express the juice through a new cloth, over a china bowl.  Then mix some gum-arabic water with it.
    2.  If you want a tone of colour different from the natural colour of the flower, you may change it by only adding, after the flowers are pounded, a little quicklime dist in the mortar, and give tow or three strokes of a pestle more to the whole; then strain it.
    3.  Note.  If you should pound these flowers in a wooden mortar, you must be cautioned at least to take care it should not be one of walnut tree wood, because it is apt to tarnish he colours and destroy their brightness, which is one of the chief things always required in colours.
    4.  In the month of March, you may by means of the same process, obtain the colour from garden, or double violets.  But this is never so fine or so lively.

XXXVII.  To make a dark green, for miniature pictures, washing on paper, an draperies and terraces.
    Take, towards the end of autumn, a good quantity of wallwork stalks, with their fruits on them, and very ripe.  Let them rot for five of six days in the cellar; and when you see the fruits have fomented sufficiently to give easily their juice by expression, strain it through a new cloth in alum-water.  Divide the whole into several glass tumblers, to dry it more easily.  Set them in the air, but not in the sun; and lay some paper over them, to prevent any thing from falling into the glasses, but which should not at the same time stop the exhalation of the liquor, and thereby cause it to become mouldy.  By these means, you shall have a colour fit for the wash of a green hue; and dark at the same time.

XXXVIII.  To make the Bistre for the wash.
    1.  Grind on marble, with child's water, some chimney-soot.   Mullar it as fine as possible.  When done, put it in a wide-mouthed bottle, which fill up with clear water; and then, stir and mix all well with a wooden spatula.  Let the coarsest part settle to the bottom of the vessel.  What remains in the bottom is the coarsest bistre.
    2.  Proceed the same with respect to the second bottle, and after having left this to settle for three or four days, instead of half an hour, decant it into a third.  This gives you the finest bistre.
    3.  In the manipulation of all the colours which are intended to serve in drawing for wash, whenever you will not have them doubtedly look very bad; for the neatness required in a draught, forbids the use of any coarse colour.

XXXIX.  The secret or a fine red for the wash.
    1.  Make a subtile powder with cochineal.  Put it in a vessel, and pour rose-water over it as will exceed above it by two fingers.
    2.  Dilute calcined and pulverised alum, while it is quite warm, into plantain water, and mix some of the liquor in which you have dissolved the cochineal.
    3.  This process will give you a very fine red, much preferable for the wash, to that which is mad with vermillion, because this last has too much consistence, and besides tarnishes too soon, on account of the mercury which enters into its composition.

XL.  A secret to make carmine at a small expence.
    Break and bruise in a bell-metal mortar, half a pound of gold colour Fernamboroug Brasil.  Put this to infuse with distilled vinegar, in a glazed pipkin, in which boil it for the space of a quarter of an hour.  Strain the liquor through a new strong cloth; then set it again on the fire to boil.  When it boils, pour on it white wine vinegar, impregnated with roman alum.. Stir well with a wooden spatula and the froth that will arise is the carmine.  Skim it carefully in a glass vessel, and set it to dry.

§ V.  Composition of Colours, to Dye Skins or Gloves.

XLI.  A lively Isabel.
    To make a lively Isabel colour, you must, to a quantity of white, add one half of yellow, and two-thirds of red and yellow.

XLII.  For a pale filbert colour.
    1.  Take burnt umber, a little yellow, very little white, and still less red.
    2.  This is made darker by adding a quantity of burnt umber, as much yellow, a little white, and as much red.

XLIII.  For the gold colour.
    To much yellow, join a little more red; and this mixture will give you a very fine bright gold colour.

XLIV.  For the flesh colour.
    To imitate well the complexion, or flesh colour, you mix a little white and yellow together, then add a little more red than yellow.

XLV.  The straw colour.
    Much yellow; very little white; as little red, and a great deal of gum.

XLVI.  A fine brown.
    1.  Burnt umber;  much black chalk;  a little black, and a little red; will make a fine brown, when well incorporated together.
    2.  The same is made paler, by decreasing the quantity of black chalk, and no black at all in the above composition.

XLVII.  To make a fine musk colour.
    Take burnt umber; very little black chalk; little red and a little white.  These ingredients will mixed will produce as fine a musk colour as ever was.

XLVIII.  To make a frangipane colour.
    1.  This is made with a little umber; twice as much red, and three times as much yellow.
    2.  The paler hue of it is obtained by adding only some white, and making the quantity of red equal to that of yellow.

XLIX.  An olive colour.
    To make the olive colour, take umber, not burnt; a little yellow; and the quarter part of it of red and yellow.

L.  How to make skins and gloves tale these dyes.
    Grind the colours you have pitched upon the perfumed oil of jessamine, or orange flowers.  Then range the grinded colour on a corner of the marble stone.  Grind of gum-adragant, an equal quantity as that of the colours, soaking it all the while with orange flower water.  Then grind both the gum and the colour together, in order to incorporate them well.  Put all into a pan, and pour a discretionable quantity of water over it, to dilute sufficiently your paste.  Then with a brush, rub your gloves of skins over with this tinged liquor, and hang them in the air to dry.  When dry, rub them with a stick.  Give them again, with the same brush, another similar cost of the same dye, and hang them again to dry.  When dry for this second time, you may dress them, the colour is sufficiently fixed, and there is no fear of its ever coming off.

LI.  To varnish a chimney.
    Blacken it first with black and size.  When this coat is dry, lay another of white lead over it, diluted in mere sized water.  This being dry also, have verdigrese diluted and grinded with oil of nuts and a coarse varnish, and pass another coat of this over the white.

§ VI.  To Colour, or Varnish Copperplate Prints.

LII.  To varnish copperplate prints.
    1.  Have a frame made precisely to the size of your print.  fix it with common flour paste, by the white margin on that frame.  Let it dry, then lay the following transparent varnish on it, which is to be made without fire.
    2.  Dilute in a new glazed pipkin, with a soft brush, as big as your thumb, about a quarter of a pound of Venice turpentine and two-penny worth of spike, and turpentine oils, and half a gill or thereabouts, of spirit of wine.  This varnish being no thicker than the white of an egg. lay with your brush, a coat of it on the wrong side of the print; and, immediately another on the right.  Then set it to dry, not upright, but flat.  And, if it should not dry quick enough, pass a light coat of spirit of wine on the whole.

LIII.  How to colour these prints, in imitation of pictures in oil colours.
    1.  To paint these prints, you must work them on the back in the following manner; Prepare first your colours on a pallet, and then proceed thus;
    2.  The flesh colour is made with a little white and vermilion, which mix with your pencel according to the degree of redness you will have it.-- For the green of tree leaves, you must have mountain green, ready prepared from the colourman; and for the finest green, some verdigrease.  As for the lighter shades of these colours, you only add some yellow to either of the above two, more or less, according to the circumstances.-- To paint woods and trunks of trees, nothing more is required than umber.-- To express sky-colours and clouds, you mix some blue cerus with white lead; and with these two colours only, you alter your blues to various degrees of shades, diminishing or augmenting one of the two, according to the darkness or lightness of the skies which you want to express.  For the distances, a mixture of yellow and white lead, and so on for the other colours you may want.
    3.  You are to compost them yourself on the pallet with the pencel; and to mix or unite them, use a little oil of nuts, which take up with the point of the pallet-knife.  Then, with your pencel, you apply them on the wrong side of the print.

LIV.  A varnish which suits all sorts of prints and pictures; stands water; and makes the work appear as shining as glass.
  Dilute one quarter of a pound of Venice turpentine, with a gill, or thereabouts of spirit of wine.  If too thick, add a little more of this last;  if not enough, a little of the former, so that you bring it to have no more thickness than the apparent one of milk.  Lay one coat of this on the right side of the print, and when dry, it will shine like glass.  If it be not to your liking, you need only lay another coat on it.

LV.  To make appear in gold the figures of a print.
    1.  After having laid on both sides of the print, one coat of the varnish described in the above Art. LVI. in order to make it transparent, let it dry a little while.  Then, before it is quite so, lay some gold in leaves on the wrong side of the print, pressing gently on it with the cotton you hold in your hand.  By these means all the parts, whereon you lay these gold leaves, will appear like true massive gold on the right side.
    2.  Now, when this is all thoroughly dry, lay on the right side of it, one coat of the varnish described in the preceding Art. LVI. it will then be as good as any crown-glass.  You may also put a paste board behind the print, to support it the better in its frame.

LVI.  A curious secret to make a print imitate the painting on glass.
    Choose a crown-glass the size of your print; and lay on it two coats of the following varnish;
    1.  Put on the fire, in a glazed pipkin, and let boil for the space of one hour, Venice turpentine, four ounces; spirit of the same, and of wine, equal parts, one ounce and half of each; mastice in tears, two drachms.
    2.  After it has boiled the prescribed time, let it cool, and then lay the first coat on the glass; this being dry, lay another; and, as soon as this is nearly dry, then lay on it, as neatly as possible, the print, previously prepared as follows.
    3.  Have a glazed vessel so broad at the bottom as to admit of the print flat with all ease in its full size.  Let this vessel be also as wide at top as it is a bottom, that you may get the print in and out of it on its flat, without bending it in the least.  Pour aquafortis in this pan or vessel, enough to cover all the bottom, then lay the engraved side of your print on that aquafortis.  Take it out, and wipe the aquafortis off gently with soft rags, then steep it two or three times in three different clean fresh waters, and wipe it each time in the same manner.
    4.  This being done, lay the right side on the before mentioned glass, before the second coat of varnish be quite dry, and while it is still moist enough for the print to stick upon it uniformly, equally, and smoothly, without making any wrinkles or bladders.  When it is perfectly dried in that situation, wet your finger in common water, and moistening the print on the back part in all the white places, which have received no impression from the engraving of the plate, rub it all off.  By these means, there will remain nothing but fairly the printed parts.  On them you may paint in oil with a brush, and the most bright and lively colours; and you will have pictures, on which neither dust nor any thing else, will be able to cause any damage.  To do this, there is no need of knowing either how to paint or draw.

LVII.  The method of chalking, for those who are not acquainted with drawing.
    They who are not acquainted with the principles of drawing, may amuse themselves with chalking some beautiful prints on white paper, where they shall have nothing more to do afterwards than shade, in the same manner as they see done in the original.  When they shall have practiced for the while in that way, they will soon become able to strike out themselves some good piece or design.  And to obtain that point, the following method is recommended.
    1.  With a soft and one of the best black lead pencils, rub one side of a white sheet of paper, cut to the size of the print, so that nothing of the paper can be seen, and only the black lead colour.  Lay this sheet on the clean side, upon the face of the print, that it may not soil it; and on this sheet, the black side of which now lies uppermost towards you, lay another sheet of clean paper, and fix these three sheets together by the four corners, and on the edges with fine pins, so that the sheets may not vary on from another, which would quite confuse and mar the whole design.
    2.  Now take a blunted needle, or ivory point, and slip it in pressing gently all over the turns of the prints, going gradually and orderly, for fear of forgetting some places, which may be prevented by laying a flat ruler across the print under your hands.  When the whole is finished, unpin the papers, and on the under part of that which lays at top, you will find all the outlines of the print most exactly drawn.
    3.  You may now on these outlines, pass a stroke with India ink and a brush, or with ink and a pen; after which, with a crumb of stale bread, you rub off clean all the useless marked of the pencil, and leave none but those marked with the ink, or colours, and a brush.

LVIII.  To prepare a transparent paper to chalk with.
    In order to obtain the art of chalking neatly, and not to go out of the fine turns and outlines of a drawing, beginners should first know how to prepare a transparent paper, which as it lets them see the minutest parts of the strokes as through a glass, gives them of course an opportunity of acquiring by practice, a correctness in the expression of all the turns of drawing.  This preparation is as follows.
    1.  Have one or several sheets of fine and very thin paper, and rub them over with oil, or spirit, of turpentine, mixed in double the quantity of oil of nuts.  To cause the paper to imbibe that mixture, steep a sponge or feather in it, which pass on both sides of the paper, and then let it dry.
    2.  When you want to use it, lay it on a print.  Then, with a brush, a pencil, or a pen, pas over all the strokes, lines, and turns, of the design laid under.  You may even thus learn to shade with neatness, it you wash that same design, while fixed on the original print, with India ink.
    By practising often you may learn to draw very neatly, and even with boldness.  This method will certainly prove very useful and entertaining, for those who have not the patience to learn by the common method, which seems too tedious to some, and generally disgusts beginners.

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