U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: gum arabic

Re: gum arabic



Loris wrote:

I'm not that much confident since I had read this:
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/Winter01-02/bird.cfm

What do you (all) think?
Loris, I think it's unfortunate that they used unhardened gum as a varnish; soluble gum is extremely likely to crack, as it did in that instance, as well as being totally water soluble. (In this case the water solubility was a blessing, because it made it easy to remove). This isn't relevant to our use of gum arabic where the gum that remains in the artwork is not water soluble and doesn't have the same properties of being susceptible to cracking, so I'd say you shouldn't let that account shake your confidence in the archivality of a gum print.
Katharine



  • Follow-Ups: