Re: gum printing ratios
Ilana, This is too funny-you just started gum printing and already you and your friend are in disagreement!! How typical of gum! Welcome to the club. The gum wars have been going on since its discovery in the 1850's. I think it was unveiled at a particularly cantankerous astrological configuration. Judy is right in telling you to find your own way and stick to it. I taught gum for the first time to a class of students last year. Not a one of theirs look like my gum prints. I don't know what they did, but one final project in gum looked almost...rainbow like. I think this student did the tricolor and then brushed it off and did more than three layers and brushed each off or something like that so that it ended up looking like little rainbow strokey things all over with little streaks of magenta interspersed with little streaks of yellow and blue. Quite lovely--like an opal. Another did gums that looked like flat frescoes--again, don't ask me how, but for the project which was of Guatemala it was perfect. That is the beauty of the process--its individuality. I do premix my pigments. I have for years now. They work fine. It helps me keep track of exactly what I am doing--a sort of semi-standardization. I shake them up right before use and don't waste a drop. No streaking and mixing at time of use. But this is NOT true of settling pigments like nickel titanate or cerulean blue--these settle and have to be vigorously shaken. But I don't usually use these. A lot of the newer pigments like the quinacridones are pretty concentrated and light and in my bottles don't have problems settling. I also keep the ratio of gum/pigment:dichromate at 1:1 and I vary the gum/pigment side very easily by using less premixed pigment/gum stock and more gum. For instance, a color that is weak like a raw sienna will be maybe 1 tsp gum/pigment stock: 1 tsp gum: 2 dichromate (I use essentially a 15% am di on that side). If too strong, I use a 1/2 tsp or 1/4 tsp of gum/pigment stock to 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 gum: 2 tsp dichromate if that makes sense. I do this often with thalo blue, quinacridone magenta, and some yellows that are way too brilliant. Or, if I want a monochrome look I will maybe only use a drop of each premixed stock to 2 tsp of plain gum to 2 tsp of am di. My stock mix is 1 tube of watercolor pigment (14/15ml) mixed in a total of 60ml gum/pigment (no rocket science here--I just squish out a tube into some gum, mix, add more gum, and pour it all into little nalgene bottles and top it off with gum til it's filled). I share my way of doing it as only one "right way" that works for me. Sam Wang, who never premixes, was my professor. We each find our own way and the authority that our way works or not is in our prints. Period. So find your way, too and share it with us. Hope this makes sense. Chris on the process when we got into a little disagreement. So here is the question for everyone: when altering the ratio of gum to pigment, do most people add a little more gum to get less pigment. And if so, should the dichromate amount be equal to the total amount of thosetwo?My friend said that I should always use the exact same stock [which I have
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