U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Taming Fabriano Artistico (Trad. White) for Cyanotype

Taming Fabriano Artistico (Trad. White) for Cyanotype


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  • Subject: Taming Fabriano Artistico (Trad. White) for Cyanotype
  • From: Loris Medici <mail@loris.medici.name>
  • Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:51:36 +0200 (EET)
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I have few questions about Fabriano Artistico Trad. White & Trad. Cyanotype:

Is there anyone using this paper for Trad. Cyanotype? Do you pre-treat the
paper before printing Cyanotype?

I had a bad experience with Fabriano Artistico and New Cyanotype,
therefore plan to acidify (or neutralize) the paper before printing Trad.
Cyanotype. I remember someone's nice Cyanotype prints on Artistico but I'm
not sure if it was the Trad. White or Extra White variant.

I want a paper which is good for both Cyanotype and Gum -> I want for more
dmax / punch with my color prints, therefore want to use Cyanotype as the
Cyan layer.

BTW, any non staining / transparent M and Y primary pigment suggestions
would be highly appreciated. As far as I can see, Schmincke PV19 is nice
as Magenta but PY151 of the same brand has too much filler and kills the
underlying layers by seriosly clouding them (despite being marketed as
semi-transparent)...

I plan to:
1. mix 0.5M (~50ml 35% HCl into water givin a final volume of 1000ml) HCl and
2. put the paper into it for not more than 10 minutes and
3. transfer the paper into salted water (to suck the HCl out of the paper
by osmosis) few minutes
4. rinse it (flushing several times) in pH neutral tap water

Do you think the above procedure is fine to get rid of the calcium
carbonate buffer in the paper w/o disturbing it's integrity?

Should I lightly size the paper after acid treatment in order to get a
decent (contrasty and sharp) Cyanotype layer of will it work OK?

Thanks in advance!
Loris.

P.S. I know I can try this and see for myself but I'm sure there are
people already tried this before, so I'm trying to save time by not
pursuing an lenghty but equally ineffective(?) procedure...