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

[herr unterberg <phritz-phantom@web.de>]

hi july, 
i'm really happy to get such a warm welcome. especially from you, because i've been wanting to contact you for quite some time to order the issues of the "post-factory photography" journal. are there still some left? how much would you charge for the nine + postage to europe?
or do you have them on pdf? (of course not for free, i've read your writings on that!), just to save time and postage money.  and do you accept paypal?

i think i finally had a breakthrough in gum printing  yesterday. thanks to densitometer readings i can finally guesstimate how one sort of emulsion mix (3 gum (33%) + 1 chromat (am-di saturated) + ß.3gr lamp black powder + 15ml water) will react to exposure. in opposition to completely being in the dark before. 
the first big step was to order enough quality materials to last me a year or five: gum in chunks, powder pigment, a paper i can afford (it's cheap, thin (200gr) - i like that, it curls a little, but it's affordable, stays under the water surface with the emulsion side up and survives an hour in hot water - and has two finishes (rough on the front, smooth on the back) ). and i currently use rabbit skin glue as a size. 

the second step was exposing a negative with two areas: one of lower density and contras and the upper half (trees against the sky) with more contrast and density. (i use inkjet-negs btw). after exposure i could see that the gum in the higher density half came off during development, but stuck in the lower density area. i compared that to the densitometer readings and finally realized that i was grossly overexposing all the time. my exposure for a rather thin neg went down from 4-6 min to 2:40.
here's a scan of a single-layer print: http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c367/phritz/02.jpg?t=1233627472

about sookang kim:
i guess i was more thinking of her beautiful prints of the handbags or cloth bundles, while your comment was more about the ones with the clothes on the hanger? am i right?
i imagined her printing, for example the stripes on the cloth, like that: print the whole thing in green, then a layer in a different colour on top (completely opaque) and brush off the second colour from the areas that are supposed to be green. like a combination of one-colour prints, instead of a tri-colour rgb print (with all the colors mixing) . if that makes any sense. 

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
> Gesendet: 02.02.09 05:34:34
> An: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Betreff: RE: More to see in NYC (Hint: Sookang Kim)


> 
> 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
> >
> >> ____________________________________________________________________
> > Psssst! Schon vom neuen WEB.DE MultiMessenger gehört?
> > Der kann`s mit allen: http://www.produkte.web.de/messenger/?did=3123
> 
> 


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