Photo-crayotype

The other, producing what is generally referred to as a “crayon enlargement”,[2][3] was to use a magic lantern to project the photograph onto the rear of drawing paper or a canvas.

[9] In the second advertisement Freeman Brothers studio promoted their ‘Crayon Collotypes’ as combining the fidelity of photography with the brilliancy, softness, and transparency of miniatures on ivory.

[9] The last was an advertisement by Edward Dalton who was encouraging Sydney-siders to purchase his ‘Collodion Portraits’, which he believed had the delicacy and clearness of mezzotint engravings and when coloured possessed the finish and brilliancy of miniatures on ivory.

[9] Dalton’s coloured photos must have differed in some way from the photo-crayotype he was promoting as his own discovery in 1858 but it is clear from the advertisements that the Australian photographers were using collodion plates as the basis for their images.

[13] But it is also true that Dalton’s ‘photo-crayotypes’ were similar to other processes which used photography as the base from which to overpaint with crayons, pencils, watercolours and oil paint.