[alt-photo] Re: color theory?

[Paul Viapiano]

Kurt,

A lot is decided as the print unfolds...many times a color won't print as 
dark or as saturated as you planned, which will make your next move 
different than you originally thought.

There's a beautiful uncertainty to gum that allows one to go with the flow. 
Many times I planned on doing 3 layers and ended up with 5 or 6, because the 
print didn't say *finished* to me...

Paul



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kurt Nagy" <kakarott76 at hotmail.com>
To: "The alternative photographic processes mailing list" 
<alt-photo-process-list at lists.altphotolist.org>
Cc: "The alternative photographic processes mailing list" 
<alt-photo-process-list at lists.altphotolist.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 12:27 PM
Subject: [alt-photo] Re: color theory?


> Thats what I was looking for,
>
> I mainly work with traditional b/w in my darkroom so I was looking for a 
> game plan on how to attack multi-layer colors from a single negative.  I'd 
> seen several beautiful prints that had upwards of 8 layers but wasn't 
> quite sure how the artist picked their colors.  Obviously it's subjective 
> to the image and what you're wanting to convey but I like having a 
> starting point to experiment from ;)
>
> Thanks for the reply
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 22, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Diana Bloomfield <dhbloomfield at bellsouth.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> Well, okay, since nobody else answered, I'll just say what I do.  I 
>> mentioned to someone recently that I use only about 3, maybe 4, pigments, 
>> and then they saw this big old tray of watercolor pigments, filled to the 
>> brim, in my studio.  They asked what happened to my "3 or 4 pigments" 
>> that I use.  I then had to explain how many shades there really are of 
>> blue or yellow or magenta-- kind of like trying to find the perfect gray 
>> wall color-- some have bluish or violet casts; others have green casts; 
>> still others have a red cast . . .  (I just painted my living room wall a 
>> deep taupe gray, so I am way too familiar with that perfect elusive 
>> gray-- though I think I found it in Ben Moore's "Ashley Gray," in case 
>> anybody cares.)
>>
>> Everybody is different, but I tend to stick with either Daniel Smith 
>> watercolors or M. Graham, and typically use a Prussian blue for my cyan 
>> layer; a quinacridone gold for the yellow; and something to the left of a 
>> real magenta for my magenta layer (typically a burnt scarlet).  For some 
>> reason, whenever I use a real magenta, things come out a little too pink 
>> for my taste. Those are for tri-colors.  For multi-layer prints, from one 
>> b&w negative, I stick with a lot of warm browns and maybe a prussian blue 
>> to darken shadows and maybe a gold for some highlights.  I don't do a lot 
>> from one negative, but when I do, that's what I do..  That's kind of 
>> vague, I guess, but there you have it.
>>
>> Diana
>>
>> On Nov 22, 2011, at 11:10 AM, Kurt Nagy wrote:
>>
>>> Since we're on the subject of our individual process.
>>>
>>> How does everyone decide what combination of colors to use for a given 
>>> print.  Not a tricolor per say but a multilayer print.  I'm rather new 
>>> at gum printing and have had success with single layer and even single 
>>> negative tricolor but I haven't tried multilayers, mainly cause I'm not 
>>> sure what works best.
>>>
>>> I guess this is more of a color theory question.
>>>
>>>
>>
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