[alt-photo] Re: PVA for SIZE & GUM ?

[Diana Bloomfield]

Hey Judy,

I'm not sure of your exact question, and I hesitate to even answer,  
since I haven't actually been teaching gum for any length of time.   
But I did teach a workshop very recently, and we used PVA.  I had a  
handout, though, with instructions on how to also use gelatin/glyoxal  
as a size, and talked about that-- but since I don't use it anymore  
myself, I taught with the PVA. The only downside was that-- for people  
who had never done any gum printing before-- I thought the prints were  
actually very good.  Of course, that was a downside (only for me),  
because I felt like I'd struggled mightily in the beginning stages of  
learning to print gum-- just to get a damn image to come out.  And  
here these folks were-- just making really nice prints, right off the  
bat.  That seemed somehow all wrong to me.  If I had to struggle, I  
figure everybody else should have to do so, too.  But I certainly  
credit the PVA, and the ease of and success in using it-- more than my  
teaching, for sure.  :)

Diana

>
> I expect to run a gum workshop this summer, and tho I usually open a  
> workshop with full-fledged paper sizing (shrink, coat, recoat,  
> harden & like that), and my instinct is to do that anyway as a token  
> of "history," and/or fail-safe in case PVA is a market item that  
> could disappear or be changed by manufacturer(s), or not available  
> in the antarctic, I wonder how folks who use PVA for gum would treat  
> that question?
>
> TIA,
>
> Judy
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