In appreciation of all the advice I received about pesky air bubbles
in the liquid silver emulsion process, I wanted to report back on my
experiences. I tried everything that was suggested, but most of the
remedies left stains or created other obstacles to getting a smooth coating on
the Japanese paper I have been using. My bubbles must be especially
intractable because attacking them with a brush, or a glass rod coated with
emulsion, only served to move them from place to place. The one thing that
worked reasonably well was Everclear (thanks Chris), but only if I touched an
eyedropper to the vodka, and then touched that dropper to the emulsion
(literally a "touch", and not a squeezed drop).
Of course, once I solved that problem, another one surfaced. (This
process has got to be one of the most mysterious and fraught with
difficulties.) Although I don't vary my working process, I sometimes
have sessions where the backs of my paper (Gampi) are full of stains that look
almost like a fungus; they show through to the printed side (in a way that
almost looks to be eroding the emulsion), making the print look like it
has...um...the measles (brown spots instead of red, though). I would
suspect that these measles were a virus contaminating the list, but I
had them before they surfaced recently in connection with solarplate
images.
Any insights?
Rita