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 ? 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.

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.”