[alt-photo] Re: printing on silk
Diana Bloomfield
dlhbloomfield at gmail.com
Wed Oct 24 03:21:48 GMT 2012
Marek,
I've printed both cyanotype and palladium on silk, and while the cyanotype turned out much better-- I just found the silk, for both processes, just seemed to be very pale-- which offers up a sort of wispy ethereal look, but you have to like and embrace that look, I think, to continue with it. Both images obviously showed up more distinctly when I put it against a white background, though.
The silk I used was 100% white silk, which was actually difficult to find. Many of the supposed silks have something else in them, so they're not 100% silk-- so you have to watch for that-- by reading the fine print. But I ended up also buying straight unbleached muslin. I printed only cyanotype on that, and those printed into a dark, distinct sort of cobalt blue and surprisingly rich. I've just started going back to that again and really like it.
I prefer the idea of silk, but considering that the wonderful long tonal range of platinum/palladium is part of what makes it so appealing-- well, all that seemed to be lost on silk (for me). So it seemed an expensive process to lose that in a final image.
Anyway-- not much help here-- though I do remember that Galina Manikova (do I have that name right?) who used to be on the list-- she made these wonderful large cyanotypes on silk, I believe, and I *think* they were all female nudes-- and so that sort of ethereal look really matched her subject matter. As I remember, she hung the finished silk images on dowels when exhibited, so they just short of flowed and moved-- it all seemed to work so well.
But, mainly, I think that you have to really make sure you're working with 100% silk. It makes a difference.
Diana
On Oct 23, 2012, at 10:29 PM, Marek Matusz wrote:
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> I want to print some palladium and cyanotype on silk. I have tried a few silks, but nothing really woked for me for palladium. I got one silk to be pretty decent for cyanotype, but not quite happy. I do recall from some time ago seeing a very nice palladium print on silk in the exchange portfolio. Can anybody help with sepcific silk recommendations? Marek
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