U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | RE: Gum over Cyanotypes

RE: Gum over Cyanotypes



Hi Don, thanks much for taking the trouble of sending a detailed description.

29 Nisan 2009, Çarşamba, 4:05 am tarihinde, Don Bryant yazmış:
> ...
> First I pre-shrink parent sized sheets 10 at a time in our garden sized
> bath tube for several hours with luke warm water.
> ...

Will definitely try sizing sheets in warm water as you/David/Marek
describes. I already prefer to acidify parent sheets too so shrinking will
be done in the same regime. Actually it won't hurt my workflow since I
already have to rinse the sheets to clear them of HCl and CaCl2, so that
will be a warmer and slightly longer rinse...

> I print cyanotype on the sized paper and never have a problem doing so.
> Printing the cyanotype on the sized paper makes for a sharper image, IMO.

That's interesting, my experience is the opposite. But I havent tried that
w/ Fabriano Artistico. And I would agree that sized paper increase
acutance due less reflections -> but eventually I size the papers later
for gum printing, so it's only matter of timing...

> I
> register negatives by eye for gum exposures by laying the coated sheet on
> a
> light box with a sheet of glass lying on top of the negative. The negative
> is taped in place once the registration is achieved and then exposed to
> UV.
> I never have any problem registering negs 11x14 or smaller.

I always have registration problems in the first (and sometimes in the
second too) gum layer. After that, no registration problems...

From now on:
1. I will thoroughly shrink paper
2. I will expose the cyanotype with humidified paper (have to work out new
exposure times -> they will be considerably shorter than my current ones)
so that the paper relaxation is close to when I print gum (w/ humidified
paper)
3. Will iron prints (as Christina said) after each layer

I think that way the problem will be cured completely / forever...

Regards,
Loris.