Re: Taming Fabriano Artistico (Trad. White) for Cyanotype
Loris, I'll answer a couple of your questions from my experience. Fab does not like cyanotype. However, it is my paper of choice for gum and there is no problem using it as a tricolor underlayer. If it were to be a plain cyanotype I would never use the paper. I do no pretreatment of the paper. Also, I noticed an interesting difference when sizing it with formalin vs. glut. I do not know the acidity of either but when I use formalin size, my guess is it is more acid because the cyano layer is much more normal and dark on top, whereas with glut the cyano layer is paler. So your size of choice will have some effect. But I do size with glut. The reason I don't mind a paler cyano layer for tricolor is because if you are not careful the cyano layer can dominate and be too punchy and dark. In a convo with Mike Ware, in discussing trad vs. Ware's cyanotype, I said that the Ware's was too navy for tricolor. He suggested to dilute it 2x or more to get a less intense blue because it is 2x stronger than traditional cyanotype. Is it possible you could try that, and add some citric acid to your cyanotype solution to make it like the Fab paper? Ware had not done the dilution thing and was just speculating with me about tricolor, and it is on my list of literally 52 things to try. Gee, one a week. And Henry Rattle suggested diluting traditional even up to 6 or 7 times! I also know that if I am not mistaken, Sam says that diluting it does NOT change the lightness/darkness of it but increases contrast. I found that in order to change the color I had to go to a 6x dilution and it was slower in speed. But in practice I now use 1A:1B on Fab and it is pale enough by far for a tricolor, given the fact that the paper does not like cyano. Or switch papers to Rives BFK which cyanotype likes, or Platine, or Aquarelle. But it seems papers change their sizing occasionally so I never know if this continues to be true. Colors: the ones I use are listed on the color swatches on my website by name and number on the Miscellaneous page. Off to work, Chris __________________ Christina Z. Anderson http://christinaZanderson.com/ __________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Loris Medici" <mail@loris.medici.name> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 5:51 AM Subject: Taming Fabriano Artistico (Trad. White) for Cyanotype I have few questions about Fabriano Artistico Trad. White & Trad. Cyanotype:
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