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DJ,
Thank YOU for all the stuff on acids, as well as
all you other people! Now I have one more thing on my plate to try--drop
by drop in my gum mix. I will post when done but with hobbling around now
I am not too fast at getting to things. BOY does that frikkin' cramp my
style.
And DJ, never feel like a novice asking all kinds
of questions. This is what makes this list tick, and in a way we are all
novices at alt.
As far as the book, I am looking for a
publisher. Long explanation, but here it is: if I want to use the book for
my tenure case in 3 yr, it cannot be self-published. However, if no
publisher wants it (a single process book makes NO money they say) then I will
self-publish within the year and just count it under my Teaching section of the
dossier, which is what I did with the Experimental Workbook and Alt Proc
Condensed.
Do you all have all these ridiculous hoops in
Europe as well? Well, I guess they really aren't ridiculous, they're kind
of challenging and even sort of fun. Well, sort of.
Chris
PS Judy I have a transfer student from Pratt this
year!
__________________
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 10:12
AM
Subject: Re: question on sizing
thanx Chris! I'll try to experiment more with the sizing,
since this is quite 'new' to me. (For cyanotype it isn't
necessary)... and about your first comment: You're WAY more experienced
them I am, so you'll probablybe able to help with lots more things... I just
need to make sure I finally get the proces a bit more unde control, so I will
be able to identify problems and ask for solutions on this list. For now, me
problems mainly look like 'hmmm after three layers it looks far to reddish to
me'. And that kind of problems of course, i figure out on my own by either
making a fourth layer with extra blue, or using less pigment in my red layer,
or using a different kind of red pigment... for that kind of solutions by the
way, I find the website http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html
on water colours VERY helpful... But i guess that's a website you guys already
know of course ;-) So in the future, be ware of more of my problems/questions
;-) For now, I'm just lurking and reading on other peoples questions and
learning from that! but than again, thanx for your
help! DJ (by the way... I already have your book 'Alternative
processes Condensed', but I heard from Kees Brandenburg that you're working on
a special book on gum only. Any idea when that will be published???)
2008/9/7 Christina Z. Anderson <zphoto@montana.net>
Hi DJ,
So now I can help YOU. Those spots are
called "fish-eyes". There are a number of causes and this, too,
plagued people back in the 1800's. They had different explanations for
it. I find that some pigments are oilier than others--yellow rarely
fisheyes for me but magenta does often. I thought this was because I
was usually using magenta as my last layer and thus there was a slicker
surface of exposed gum layers below to make it fish eye, but when I use
magenta as my first layer it does it.
You may be right in that your sizing is causing
this, either by unevenness or that the layer is a bit oily. How to get
rid of them is let the layer set for a few seconds and then brush, brush,
brush, say, with a dry hake brush to even them out. This sometimes
works.
Otherwise, make sure your gum mix is not too
liquidy, because when my coating solution is less viscous this happens more
often. So you might try adding a little gum powder to thicken the
layer so it doesn't separate.
As a last resort, do your gum print and fill in
the missing color with Prismacolor color pencils when the gum print is
finished.
One 19th century explanation talked about at
length in the British Journal of Photography was that when the dichromate
was added to the gum/pigment, little balls of insoluble gum (like fish eggs)
would form and "part the waters" so to speak. One man professed to see
it under the microscope, these little globules. Who knows if this is
correct, but it seems a bit far fetched.
I sympathize with you because fish eyes are a
PAIN.
Chris
__________________
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Sunday, September 07, 2008 4:59 AM
Subject:
question on sizing
dear list members,
I'm a novice at all these
processes, so maybe you've encountered this problem a thousand times
allready, but maybe you guys (and gals) can help me out:
for
tri-colour gum printing, I size my paper. Although I don't think my paper
(Arches Aquarelle, 300 g/m, i use both cold and hot pressed) doesn't
really need sizing, I last found this paper from bamboo that I like, that
actually does need it.
I size with a 3% gelatin solution, with
glyoxal as my hardening agent. After drying (single coat of
gelatine-size), I notice that my gym/pigment/dichromate solution doesn't
really stick on some small parts of the paper. When I use non-hardened
paper, I need more of the gum-dichromate solution to coat my paper (but I
don't actually mind this.....). On the hardened paper, I need less volume
of gum-chrom. solution. But in general, it works fine, but there are
(often) small parts, where the paper looke tike it 'rejects' the solution.
Don't really know how explain this, but it looks a bit like the paper on
that particular spot, doesn;t absorb water-like soltions).
Does any
one have any ideas on this? How to size in a way that these spot son't
occur any more? Or is sizing on Arches Aquarelle perhaps not even
necessary (an idea that I would really like, since this sizing stuff is
really boring....)?
Would love to hear your ideas on this
issue!
kind reagrd,
DJ
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