RE: More to see in NYC (Hint: Sookang Kim)

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009, herr unterberg wrote:

> your descrption of the process sounds like sookang uses more opaque 
> coatings for her gum prints than usual. i've thinking about this myself, 
> to print gum like in for example woodblock printing, with completely 
> opaque layers of colour. is there a way of getting there with gum (very 
> thick gum, lots of pigment? certain pigment?)  or would it be better to 
> use a different process, like egg-tempera-printing?
>
> (btw. first post. hello everyone. i've been reading the list for quite a 
> while now (ever since wandering off into the territories of gum printing 
> about two years ago) and hope that it's fine to post stupid questions 
> every once in a while. also please be kind to my english skills, i'm 
> from austria). phritz
Hi Phritz, welcome to the list (that is NOT supposed to rhyme, and just as 
well, because it doesn't)... I'll also remark that, in my experience, 
*stupid* questions are more likely to get an answer than "smart" 
questions, because almost anyone can be a hero (or heroine) and "correct" 
them.  (Not that your question is "stupid" but that that's not a problem.) 
(As for your "English"... Would you like to hear our German?)

Meanwhile, to be serious, or semi-serious... Sookang's coats are nowhere 
near as opaque as your average black-pigment-in-gum print.. Tho I also 
suspect that "opaque" is, in this discussion, an ill-defined term: An 
*opaque* coat could be one that simply has more pigment in it, or, when 
speaking of paint, "opaque" can also refer to something with white in 
it... like gouache. A plain watercolor painting would generally be 
transparent, even if the entire picture area has got some paint on it. In 
fact, if I recall correctly, watercolors are generally called 
"transparent" on the label. (In fact, when I was a girl, centuries ago, 
and studied watercolor painting, any additon of white at all was a no-no).

However, Sookang's effects are not opaque at all.  As she explains in the 
e-mail below, she hoses each coat with water under pressure, so that most 
of the emulsion is washed off. The tones get built up by many coats of the 
same mix -- and you actually see more white paper between the dots in the 
final print than you do pigment (and than you do in any other gum prints 
I've seen).

So whatever the opposite of "opaque" would be... they are.

Judy

> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:35:00 +0000
> From: sookang kim <sookang@hotmail.com>
> To: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>, alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Subject: RE: More to see in NYC (Hint: Sookang Kim) (fwd)
>
> Hello Judy and Keith,
>
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> Here's the answer to your question.
>
> I usually develop the print with high water pressure from the hose 
> especailly when I want very rough texture.
>
> First of all, I put really small amount of black pigment in the emulsion 
> for the prints at Sepia show. And exposed it to the ultraviolet light 
> for 3 minutes. And put the paper into the water and left it for over 2~3 
> hours. The image was perfect without any grain then. At that point, I 
> broke the smooth emulsion surface with high water pressure, which made 
> surface rough and at the same time the image got extremely pale and weak 
> because most of the pigment was washed away to make rough texture. That 
> one coat was too weak to make enough density, so I repeated the same 
> process 4 times more. The reason why I put very small amount of pigment 
> is to make a light gray, not heavy one. I needed light gray with full 
> density.
>
> Hope this answer is clear to you...
>
> Best,
> Sookang
>
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