Incidentally I’m coating at 20decC
in 65-75% humidity – and a second brush still doesn’t work for me
in that environment.
Geoff
Chaplin
ジェフ チャップリン
geoff@geoffgallery.net
www.geoffgallery.net
Skype: geoffchaplin1611
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From: Tomas Sobota
[mailto:tom@sobota.net]
Sent: 04 July 2009 18:00
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: a few notes on my
first few gum prints...
Paul,
I never use a second brush for smoothing. First, when you are doing multicoat,
the several layers will tend to average any irregularity.
And second, with a hot climate like we have in Madrid, the coat will be almost dry when I
finish covering the paper with the first brush anyway, so a secon brush would
get stuck to the gum. At first I triend this approach but it was worse. When it
is 30 centigrades inside and 20% relative humidity and you are attempting to
coat a A3 size surface you don't have too much spare time for smoothing, if
any. Of course in wetter climates this can change.
What I do when I feel that I'll be having coating difficulties is to wet the
paper slightly before coating, as Geoff suggests, or mix some additional water
in the emulsion.
As for brushes, yes you definitely need something with spring. I use Spanish
Escoda brushes 2 inches wide with natural hair (Chungking
hog bristle, actually). The ones with synthetic thin hairs have such high
capillarity that the gum mix will stay mostly in the brush, and won't release
it easily so you will need to load them much more.
Your second image BTW is very good :-)
Tom Sobota
Madrid, Spain
On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Paul Viapiano <viapiano@pacbell.net> wrote:
First of all, thanks for all the suggestions and comments on
my first tricolor gum. It was definitely a good learning experience for me.
There are a few things that I noticed while working that I
hope to clear up and solve.
One, is the use of hake brushes. I've been using the
inexpensive variety found at the typical art store, about $2-4 each. Coating is
difficult with these because there is absolutely no spring to them, they just
go limp and the hair goes every which way even brushing lightly. I know how to
coat pt/pd and am always successful when coating that emulsion. Gum, although
more viscous than pt/pd should still flow on quite easily.
I know that the gum coating should be on the thin side, and
my guess is that for a 4x5 print I should be using approx .5 - .75 ml of
solution, but those hake brushes are horrible, very hard to get an even
coating, at least consistently for me.
I'm very tempted to try a synthetic watercolor wash brush as
I use for pt/pd (DaVinci Cosmotop). Expensive, yes, but the perfect brush for
pt/pd. Just a dip in distilled water, a shake or two, and it's good to go. I
bet it would really make for a nice smooth, even and just-right gum coating
using the same technique.
Here's something else...I notice that Sam Wang, in his gum
article on Unblinking Eye, brushes on his gum coating and doesn't use another dry brush to smooth it.
I'm thinking of trying this as well, as long as I can get a really smooth, even
coat down with a good brush.
One of the things I noticed was that while burnishing my
coating with a dry brush, it started getting very
grainy looking. I'm thinking that I could keep the smoothness if I
just brush on once, nice and thin, and don't use another brush to burnish and
dry.
Today was a disaster...I started on another tricolor print
and upped the ratio of pigment to gum, to get darker colors and it all devolved
from there. It happens, I'm experimenting...this has all been seat-of-my-pants
stuff but now I need to do a few test strips with a consistent pigment/gum
ratio to get a good starting point and figure out the smooth coat/non-grainy
stuff, too.
Comments and criticisms are most welcome. I'll report back,
if y'all don't mind, on my progress and findings...
Happy 4th to everyone here in the US and much thanks to all who
weighed in from around the globe as well...
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