Re: ironing gum prints and other musings
I think this is true with a lot of alt-processes, but particularly true for gum. A recent example of this was about a month ago. A friend was in town for Fotofest, and wanted to learn a little about doing some gumovers. For various reasons, the time we had allocated got jammed up, so it amounted to about 4 hours of so-called 'instruction', from sizing to coating to exposing and developing. We did 2 coats of gum on two of his images. He's back home and sending me jpegs of what he has done since then, and holy-moly, he's got it. Amazing. But I think the key is, he both 'got it' and liked it right away, and the rest just amounts to doing it enough to learn a little more each day. > Good morning, > I've been thinking about this semester of teaching alt, what worked, what > didn't. I always get introspective (and a bit sad as my students move to > other classes) at the end of the semester. I taught gum for a period of > about 5 weeks of the total time, and this was much better to give an > extended period devoted to gum (I also taught salt, cyanotype, VDB, and > pt/pd and before only devoted 3 wk to gum). > > What I noticed (and it'd be interesting to see if other alt teachers agree > on this? Sam? Judy? Peg Fredi? Kerik? Clay? Diana? who am I missing?) is > that gum printers are "born" somewhat instantly. In the first week or two > it is apparent who will gravitate to gum and stay there and who will not. > >
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