Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1875 — How Show-Bills Are Made. [ARTICLE]

How Show-Bills Are Made.

Although the shu.w business was the first to make pictorial advertising a specialty it has come into extensive use in other lines, and blacking-manufacturers, stoyejiealers, etc., find the picture poster a good thing to shove their wares into public notice. Doubtless when the average citizen sees the bill-poster hang his banners on tire outer walls he sometimes feels curious as to how tlie'se specimens ot pictorial art are gotten up, and the Sunday Tribune will now gratify this curiosity. The sketching of the picture would naturally suggest itself as the first step of the process. One sketch, however, frequently answers for a number of purposes and the leading establishments keep in stock a large number of pictures from which selections can be made. As a general tiling shopmen and theatrical agents content themselves with a selection from among these stock designs, as special ones cost considerably more—One negro minstrel is as Hke to another as one huckleberry to another. All that is accessory to be done is to print the famous Box, Cox, or whatever the name may be, over the cut and the portraiture is complete. The feir damsels who warbib songs from the variety stages invest largely in these stock cuts, and it has thus happened that the same dead-wall has borne facsimile pictures labeled with different names. A fashionably-dressed lady leaning against an urn, or over a rustic gate in a thoughtful attitude, does for any play or any young lady, and the sameness of the modern melodrama is such that any line domestic tableau will do for almost every play. Negro and clown heads, and indeed nearly all kinds of minstrel, pantomime and variety cuts are kept in stock. Circuses always make it a point to keep getting fresh and novel cuts, and therefore order a great deal of special work, but even with themeuts of Indian life are frequently theready-made stock ones. A leading show’-printing house in this city has about 100 large pictures, affording their customers a wide range of choice in pictorial advertisement. One can get anything one wants, from a picture of an epizootic horse to a May-pole dance or an Indian hunt. We will suppose, however, that some enterprising manager has a brand-new play, and wants to get out a new and splendid lot of posters. The manager of the showprinting house talks things over with him, gets an idea of what scenes he wishes to be represented, and if portrait work is desired pictures of the actors and actresses are handed over. Next the artist comes into play. He makes sketches of the scenes desired, according to the specifications furnished, and these are altered and modified to suit the taste of the theater manager until the designs are approved. The preliminary sketches are ordinary small drawings, and are merely the miniature designs, the pictures furnished to the engraver being prepared quite differently. These the artist draws in black crayon, directly on the engraver’s wood, the same size as they are to be engraved. There are generally a number of blocks to the picture, and, when the drawing is made, the blocks are divided among the different workmen. In drawing the pictures, as a matter of course, they are reversed from the position they will appear in the printed copy, just as with type. The size of the blocks used in the engraving for show-printing is 28x42 inches. The wood used is a dry, soft pine, yielding easily to the engravers’ tools, and which, for such broad-like work as is necessary in show-printing, is much better than the hard box-wood used in fine woodcuts. A block is used for every color, so that, with the ordinary three-sheet fourcolor poster, tw’elve blocks are used. The only full engraving, however, is made on the blocks which are to take the outline color of the print technically called the “key” color, which is generally black. The faces and figures and outlines of the picture are done so as to make a good print in one color, the other blocks being used to introduce the others.

By way of illustration suppose it is desired to represent a lady standing by a seashore, and she is to Kave-on a yellow’ dress with white lace trimmings, a purplecolored overskirt, a red fan and neck-scarf, with green foliage and blue skies around. On the first set of blocks the outlines of the picture are engraved, and such parts as it is desired to have black are put in, as, for instance, the hair, eyes, feet and the shadows of the picture. In such portions of the picture where the colors are to be dark light lines are thrown across, wide spaces being dug out between. The next set of blocks, it will be supposed, are to introduce the red color. The engraver on this digs out all the portions of the picture that are-not to be printed in red. Across the face he will leave fine lines, thicker and closer on the , cheeks, with wide spaces between them, and across the overskirt throws heavier lines, while the fan and the neck-scarf will be left solid. Lines

are run into the sky wherever a sunset glory is to appear in the picture. The blocks for the yellow color are cut away in the same manner, the surface being permitted to remain only where yellow is to go. Yellow is the ground color of the green, so it goes over the foliage and other green portions of the picture. Lastly comes the blue, the block being cut so as to bring it over the yellow where green is to be made and over the black and red to make a purplish color. It will be seen that out of the four primary colors used others are obtained by their combination, and to the casual spectator a good showprint will appear to contain a great number of colors, when there are only four. The work is done to be looked at from a distance. Thus the narrow lines of red thrown across the face and hands of the figure appear as a flesh tint at the distance of the spectator. A. mass of black, blue and red lines appear as a purplish tint. The brownish tints on the trunks of the

trees on close inspection appear to be black and yellow lines with perhaps some red and blue thrown over the dark shades. As has been said, the green is but a mixture of blue and yellow. Fine lines make light shades of color, heavy and close lines make dark shades, and by combinations many shades and tints can be obtained. To look at the color-blocks as they leave the engraver’s hands there is no appearance of order or design. There is a tangle of scratchy lines here, and a patch of smooth surface there, while over the greater portion of the block the wood has been dug out to a slight depth btlow the surface. But in printing the lines and patches come to. the right places on the paper to make red lips, rosy cheeks and various colors of the dress of the lady, and all the adornments of the landscape. Printing from these blocks requires much greater care and is a much slower process than ordinary printing from metal type. Generally the blocks making up the picture are brought together to receive the last touches of the engraver. The engraving is worked over from one block to another, so as to prevent breaks, in lines and shades that might otherwise occur, and give the picture a checkered appearance. The picture, when occupying more

than one block, is not printed as a whole, but impressions are taken from the blocks separately and the sheets are put together by the bill-poster when he sticks them up. The blocks are printed on a press having a flat bed, which slides backward and forward under the rollers which impress the paper against the face of the cut. After a sheet has received one color it goes through the press with another set of blocks to receive another color, and so on until all the colors have been put on. About 700 sheets per hour is a good working rate for a chromatic press. As for each color there is a separate impression, an ordinary three-sheet, four-color poster, such as is used by theatrical agents, would require twelve impressions to make one whole picture. One office in this city has six Potter presses, which w’ere manufactured in New York expressly for printing show-bills in colors, and are said to be the most complete presses in existence.

Besides the four colors mentioned other tints are occasionally used in very fine work. Among these are brown, stonecolor and salmon color. Green ink is used for type work. Gold, silver and bronze are used sometimes in very fancy work but these are put in by hand. The places where they are to go are printed with a sizing fluid, and while the sheets are still -wet gold, silver or bronze dust, as the case may be, is brushed on with cotton batting. The different pigments used in the inks are mixed in a sort of varnish oil, and in the presses there is a series of rollers, the function of which is to apply the ink smoothly and evenly to the surface of the block. Colored inks cost from fifty cents to thirty-two dollars a pound, the latter being the price for fine carmine. The ink in 100 copiesofa three-sheet poster costs from fifteen to twenty dollars. On an average, a sheet in colors costs fifteen cents. The charge for posting is four cents a sheet, so that a three-sheet poster, when stuck up, represents an expenditure of fifty-seven cents. It is a common thing to see nine, twelve and even twenty-sheet posters out, so that each ofthe latter would represent a cost of $3.80.

The large type employed with the pictorial cuts are made from wood, maple, cheny and box being used. There is a large manufactory at Greenville, Conn., where they are made by machinery, and from this point the principal makes are obtained. They are worth from ten to fifteen cents up to seventy-two cents a letter for the most elaborate, and some of them are very beautiful. A different block for each color must be used, just as in the pictorial cuts. If, for instance, a red letter on a drab ground is desired, wooden type w’ith raised letters are used for the first printing, and type in which the letters are sunk so that the surrounding surface takes the color are next used. Ornamental borders and corners are made of wood, and some of the designs are exceedingly beautiful. They are used a good deal in getting up large illuminated price-lists, programmes, etc., and their imprint would be readily taken for lithographic work. They cost from $1.50 to $3 a foot. The smallest varieties of type are metal, as in small type that is. cheaper than wood.— Chicago Tribune.