RE: more gum

[Marek Matusz <marekmatusz@hotmail.com>]

Scott,
Seem like the gum dichromate ratios are OK. WHat pigmets is the student using. I would advise to stick with lamp black or mixed with indian red or perylene maroon for a brown tint. It looks like your student has too little pigment. SHe should be done brusing in about a minute for an 8x10 image and then leave it to dry. Finishing gum coat is tricky. Too little brush work and you have streaks, too much brush work and it streaks again. ABout 3 to 5 cc is needed for 9x11 coat. Too much solution and are you just work it into a mess. I aways finish my coating with a foam roller though.
I am assuming your negative density and exposure is OK and that might not be a good assumption. WHat is you exposure time and method?
Having said all that tell the student to take advantage of the brush work, do multiple coats and go after the feel of the gum.
Marek

> Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 18:33:08 -0400
> From: sweber@mail.barry.edu
> Subject: more gum
> To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>
> I have very little experience in gum printing and one of my students has decided to print gums. She bought the gum "kit" from Bostick & Sullivan and followed the directions in Chris James book for glyoxal-gelatin coating to size the paper then used the 6ml gum, 6ml pot. dichrom (10%) with about 1/2 inch of watercolor pigment to sensitize. Starting with a digital neg chosen by exposing the color density range palette from PDN she arrived at a negative which is sort of orange. The resulting images are weak and the coating is very uneven. This student knows how to coat paper as she produced excellent prints in my class with cyano and VDB's. She is frustrated and I said I would try to help. From my description does it look like we are doing anything wrong? I know many of you are excellent gum printers maybe through your experience you might see something that she is doing wrong.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Scott B. Weber
> Associate Professor of Photography
> Department of Fine Arts
> Barry University
> 11300 NE 2nd Avenue
> Miami Shores, Florida 33161
> (305) 899 4922
>
>

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