Magic Lantern Outline

This is the method I am using at present in my own free-hand crayon

work, and prefer because it does not require a negative. I use a

McAllister Magic Lantern, No. 653, with a wonder camera attachment.

This attachment enables you to make an enlargement from a cabinet or

card photograph, and to dispense with a negative. If you intend to do

very much free-hand crayon work I should advise you to get one, as it

will soon pa for itself. The lantern should be put in working

condition according to the printed directions that come with it, and

placed on your table. I use a table six feet long, sixteen inches wide,

and thirty inches high. Nail to one side of the table, four inches from

the end, a stick six feet long, one inch wide, and one-half inch thick,

using two two-inch brads. One end of the stick should rest on the

floor, care being taken that it stand perfectly perpendicular, a square

being used if necessary to secure this result. The stick will have a

length of 42 inches above the table, which will be ample for the use of

a 25 by 30 strainer. Place the strainer, with the crayon paper mounted

on it, facing outward on its bottom edge on the table and nail it fast

to the stick with two brads, letting it stand at right angles with the

edge of the table with its back towards the lantern, which is at the

other end of the table. The object of placing the strainer with the

back towards the lantern is that the image must show through the

strainer or the outline would be drawn reversed. Draw a charcoal mark

on the back of the strainer vertically through the centre, and mark the

proper distance from the top of strainer horizontally where the top of

the head should come. Now move the lantern until you have it the proper

distance from the strainer to make the head the size desired, and

afterwards focus the features sharp and distinct, using the charcoal

marks for the proper place to make the head, the vertical line coming

through the centre of the face; then, seated at the end of the table,

in front of the strainer, make a charcoal outline as in the former

method.



Of course the magic lantern can be used for producing an outline only

at night, or in a perfectly darkened room.



The following table will prove a safe guide to follow in determining

the size of the head for bust pictures. The distance from the roots of

the hair on the forehead to the bottom of the chin should be:



For 14 by 17 inch pictures, 4 inches,

" 16 " 20 " " 4-1/2 "

" 18 " 22 " " 5 "

" 20 " 24 " " 6 "

" 22 " 27 " " 6-1/2 "

" 25 " 30 " " 7 "

" 29 " 36 " " 7 " showing the hands.