Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

One day, observing a pile of lovely old colored steel engravings on a table, I picked one up and carried it over to the light to get a better look at it. To my surprise I noticed that the color was not put on too skillfully. In places it spilled out over the lines, and other places which should have been colored were blank. When I commented on this to the proprietor she sighed and said:

"Ah, yes, I'm afraid our colorist has more work than she can do, and she gets careless at times."

Again I showed my surprise. "You mean that these antique-looking prints have just been colored? Why they look at least a hundred years old."

"I know they do," said the antique shop lady, and of course the engravings themselves are old, but that particular coloring was done just last week. They look old because the colorist used the same delicate tints which appear in the old prints.

I was immediately interested. I had no art training whatever, but as a child I had always enjoyed coloring the pictures in coloring books—as who hasn't? These old engravings certainly looked attractive. Why, I thought to myself, shouldn't I obtain some of them and color them to decorate my own walls?

That is how I got started on a hobby which later turned into a part-time business. It wasn't profitable at first, of course. As no one volunteered any information, I had to learn everything by myself, and from scratch, but I won't take your time telling you of my many failures. You would rather know, I am sure, how I built an average and simple skill in coloring into an interesting and paying business.

PROBABLY THE question I am asked most frequently is, "Where do you find your prints?" (Engravings, lithographs, etc., are often called prints.) The answer is, "finding prints is fun." Searching for them offers all the thrill of a treasure hunt but takes much less effort. Your best bet is a secondhand book store, and the best books to look for are those which deal with American scenery.

Browse through these old volumes and take a careful look at the steel engravings, or wood engravings, which were used for illustrations before photographs came into general use. These are black and white, or gray and white, and if you look closely, you will see the words "engraved by" underneath the print. A good steel engraving, one which will take color well, is sharp and clear. Avoid the pale ones which indicate that the engraving has been made from worn-out plates, and avoid the too-dark ones which also will not take the color well. If your engravings are on high quality stiff paper with no printing on the back, so much the better.

Above all, do not buy photographs of engravings. These are on shiny paper, will not take color at all, are of no use to you as a colorist, and have little value as either a decoration or an antique.

Be choosy about the subjects you buy also. I have found that engravings of old views of towns and cities make the best investment. The rarer the view, the more valuable the engraving. And in addition to being attractive in the home, these old views are sought after by many business and professional people who like to hang old scenes of their town or state in their offices—especially if attractively framed.

Even more valuable than engravings of places are old engravings of sports, but these are hard to find. If you see one, and the price is reasonable, buy it. Engravings of pretty ladies, children, and animals rank low in sales possibilities although they are decorative in themselves. Engravings of historical characters and scenes, unless the scene is unusual—avoid those you see in schoolbooks, are also poor sellers, but they make nice collector's items if you can find them cheap enough. Fashion pictures, such as the Godey type, are easy to color, but their fad has about run out, it seems to me.

In the book stores, look especially for copies of old magazines such as Harper's Weekly, Leslie's Illustrated, and Gleason's Pictorial. These are a real treasure trove for engravings of all kinds. And they have the additional advantage of often being quite large. Perhaps I should say here that as a general rule, the larger engravings are better sellers and bring better prices. Of course there is considerably more work in coloring them. And often the small engraving may be a rare one and valuable in itself.

IN ADDITION to old book stores, engravings can frequently be found in junk shops. Many junk shops have torn copies of old books and old periodicals which they sell for very little, and in these torn copies lies many a gem. Old books and magazines with good engravings in them frequently turn up at auction sales.

The last place to buy engravings, I have found out from experience, is the antique shop. True, these shops frequently have prints but their prices are so high that your own chance of a reasonable profit is cut down.

Now, what should you pay for your engravings? For the small book size I pay from five to twenty-five cents apiece. That is, the number in the book may figure out that way, if I have to buy the whole book. The engravings in a magazine usually figure out to be less. For a large single engraving on heavy paper you will undoubtedly have to pay more. Recently at an auction I saw a man buying an engraving of George and Martha Washington and their family, a large one measuring about four feet in length, for $10. Later, it appeared colored, in his antique shop, for $125. How much he paid the colorist, or whether he will be able to sell it at this price, I do not know.

Until you have felt your way for awhile, I believe I would stick to the smaller engravings. It's safer, and if, say for example the $10 you have invested in this hobby-business is lost, I guarantee you will have had more than $10 worth of fun from it. But more about the prices to ask for your work and where and how to sell them later.

NOW THAT you have your engravings, presumably the next step is to prepare them for coloring. Many of the engravings you buy will not be in good condition. They will be water-stained and full of brown spots known as foxing. Do not be dismayed by this condition. In fact, when, you see a foxed engraving, you may be sure it is an old one. Although the water stains and brown spots can be eliminated, I would not buy an engraving which is plain dirty or impregnated with dust. Cleaning with an art gum eraser helps, but such a print seems never to lose its ugly gray look.

The first step in cleaning is to blow off the surface dust. Next, if your print needs it—very possibly it may not, give it a bleach bath. (I use Clorox of the strength indicated on the bottle for laundry bleaching). You will find that the old paper is strong and that printer's ink seems indestructible.

Do not try to clean too many prints at a time. Five or six small ones or one or two large ones is all I can handle at one bathing. Make up your bleach solution—I repeat, consult the bleach bottle for directions—and then immerse, your engraving in the solution. Watch it until the foxing and other stains have faded away. As a rule, I do not leave my prints in the liquid for more than thirty minutes.

Once your print appears clean, prepare yourself for the next step which takes a gentle touch. Although the old paper is surprisingly strong, when it is wet it does tear easily. So carefully lift your prints out of the bleach solution and prepare a rinse which is just water. I personally do my bleaching and rinsing in a kitchen sink which conveniently is flat, oblong, and has a spray attached. The spray is ideal for rinsing the bleach out of the prints. Otherwise in time it will fade out the colors which you will shortly put on.

Now if you are tired of working with the prints, you can let them dry (on a flat surface of course) and do your sizing later. The sizing further prepares the paper to take the color in a clear sharp fashion. When you are ready to size, you prepare another solution—this time made of laundry starch. I use a cold water starch (it mixes in a jiffy) of the strength indicated on the package for medium starching. Next, immerse each engraving in the starch solution and let it stay there about five minutes until the open pores of the paper have absorbed the starch. Let your prints dry—again flat. You are now ready to proceed with your coloring. Of course, all your prints should be sized whether they have to be bleached or not. This is important.

AT LAST we come to the coloring. If you are a trained artist, I have only two suggestions. 1. Observe as many genuine old colored prints as you can to see just which colors were used many years ago. 2. Buy the best grade artist's water colors and brushes you can and get to work.

If you are not a trained artist but are limited in experience, as I was, to coloring children's coloring books, then the following advice is for you. (Naturally, you will also follow the suggestions offered above to the trained artists.)

The untrained artist should not attempt to work with regular artist's water colors. Instead, use the fool-proof transparent colors, both water and oil which are sold for coloring maps and photographs. Be sure you use the transparent water colors and not dyes. The dyes will fade in short order.

The water colors I used with success come in strips of paper which are cut off in small pieces and dissolved in water. As I recall, you can buy a whole booklet of colors complete with instructions for $1.25. The instructions are easily followed, but I learned from experience that the best thing was to mix the colors faintly, at first, until I was sure of the exact shade I wanted. You can always add more color later, if necessary. And fortunately, with this type of color, if you don't like what you've done, you can soak the color out with water and start all over.

SO FAR as the actual choice of colors goes, this of course is up to you. The best guide is your own eye. Observe the different shadings in the leaves of a tree, for example, or the yellowish green of sunlight on the grass. The sky is never just blue. It is mixed with gray, and often with just the faintest shade of pink. In fact, in coloring the sky of old prints, always use a touch of pink. If you will look carefully at some Currier and Ives prints or any actual old colored engravings, you will notice this faint tinge of pink in the sky.

Buildings and houses, likewise, are never one solid color. Always shade them off with lighter or darker hues of the basic color you are using. For example, some bricks are brownish, some reddish, some orange in cast. You will find it effective to use all three of these tints in the building you are coloring.

The most helpful information in this field I came across was a little booklet given free by a local art store. This was called, "Colour Mixtures—A Few Hints by a Professional Painter." It was published by Winsor & Newton, Ltd., London, England, and you may be able to get one at a store which sells Winsor & Newton paints. This little booklet tells you exactly what colors to use to achieve the effect you want, whether it be moonlight on the sea or oxen on the road.

Another good booklet on this aspect of coloring prints I bought for twenty-five cents at an art store. This was called "A Complete and Comprehensive Treatise On The Art of Mixing Tints of Colors," by Mary Everlena Prescott of Albany, New York.

In addition to the two booklets mentioned, you might find out what material your local library has on the art of coloring. If, however, you can procure one of the Winsor & Newton booklets, I believe you will be well equipped to handle any coloring problem which may arise.

I BELIEVE my colored engravings were given special appeal by my use of both water colors and photographic oil on the same print. I used the more delicate water colors for the background, and the more vivid oil colors for the people and trees in the foreground. The oil colors must also be put on delicately—old prints are not brilliant, but somehow the oil makes the people stand out with vivid, almost third-dimensional clarity.

Although I'm sure that any brand of photographic oil colors can be used successfully, the ones I used were put out by the John G. Marshall Company of Brooklyn, New York. Here again, you should follow the instructions which come with the colors, but dilute the color greatly with both the "Extender" and the "P.M. Solution" which you buy along with the colors. Experimenting with a few inexpensive prints will show you much better than I can tell you how much color to apply. Always have the color so thin that the lines of the engraving show through it, although with the transparent colors, this important problem is pretty much solved for you.

A further word about brushes. As indicated earlier in the article, buy the best you can afford, and keep two sets—one for your water colors and one for your oil. When working with the water colors, use as dry a brush as possible, and keep a blotter handy to keep any surplus color from running out of control. The oils also should be used sparingly, but you will find these easier to manage. Incidentally, it is well to dry your prints as soon as possible after coloring. I often put mine in a slightly warm oven or over the top of a lamp.

After your prints are colored, there is one final step if you want to be extra conscientious about the color holding as long as possible. (Modern artist's colors made from chemicals unfortunately are not like the old hand-ground colors made from natural products. The hand-ground colors would keep their full strength for over 100 years.) This final step is to apply heat to the finished print. You can heat your prints thoroughly in the oven—just heat them, don't brown them, or you can iron them (uncolored side) with your iron at its coolest point.

AT LAST, your formerly drab looking black and white engravings are colored and look surprisingly lovely. You have taken them through five simple steps:

1. Bleach
2. Rinse
3. Size
4. Color
5. Heat

They are now ready for sale. How do you go about this?

Well, if you live in a likely spot you can hang out a shingle reading, "Old Prints" and wait for customers. Or you can pile your prints into a folder and take them around to various antique shops and ask if they will handle them on consignment for you, or perhaps buy them outright.

You can approach various interior decorators, show them your prints, and ask if they can use them in their decorating business. I was lucky in that a large department store in Washington, D.C., where I live, used my output in its art and picture framing department. Perhaps you can make a similar arrangement with a store in your community. One elderly couple I know has a lot of fun travelling around the country with two paper cartons. One carton holds the colored prints which they sell any place they can along their journeys, and the other carton holds the old prints they buy in any likely place they come across. Sometimes they find a gem, as in a print of a Texas city they bought for ten cents. It happened to be a rare old print, and later an old print dealer in New York City was glad to give them $20 for it.

How much should you ask for your prints? That is up to you, I suppose. Personally, I have sold hundreds at $2 apiece. These are the small engravings, the Bartlett prints, or the Picturesque America kind, the actual engraving itself, that is. The shops usually ask around $3 to $5 for the colored ones, and $1 to $2 for the uncolored ones. You must remember that you are selling, not just a picture, but an antique, and a hand-colored one at that. If you pay ten cents an engraving, you alone can determine what the time and effort spent in coloring is worth to you, and price your product accordingly. Without question, your profit is greater if you sell the prints directly to the customer yourself.

THERE IS obviously another way to make money from this hobby. You may wish merely to be a colorist and not a seller of prints. In this case, you will have to get hold of some prints, color them, and take them around with you as samples of your work. You may ask antique or art store dealers if they have any prints they would like colored. Or you may write dealers in old prints and ask them if they have any work to be done.

Some of these dealers, you may as well be warned, say they pay very low prices to their colorists, but I have seen the work of these underpaid people, and it is understandably very badly done indeed, not to be compared with the careful work you will do. You understand, of course, that even as a colorist, you will have to bleach and size the prints before you color them. Consequently, I always ask at least $1 apiece for coloring the small engravings. The larger ones should be priced accordingly. Of course, if you are a very fast worker, you may find it profitable to accept less.