I had several weeks ago observed a phenomenon that I made a note to
myself to return to and explore further. After further tests, my suspicions
were confirmed in that the part or all of the lithium chloropalladite in the
Ziatype print can be substituted with gold chloride. The color shifts from
slightly warmish prints with pinkish brown overtones, to full lavender
purple prints. My experiments have shown that up to 80% of the drops of
lithium chloropalladite can be replaced with drops of 5% gold chloride. A
total gold print seems to require a double strength ferric ammonium oxalate
and 10% gold chloride. It appears that a small quantity of palladium is
necessary to strengthen the effects of the gold. It appears that there is
little difference in color or contrast between a 5 x 7 print made with 7
drops of 5% gold chloride and a print made with 8 drops of 10% gold
chloride. Perhaps it is only a semantic argument that one print could be
said to be pure gold, while the other is only 80% gold and 20% palladium.
I suspect that 1 drop of potassium chloroplatinite standard printing
solution will work as well as the lithium palladium chloride. Gold chloride
is also a very hygroscopic/deliquescent material so its substitution for the
lithium palladium salt retains much of the moisture retention capacity of
the print, so the substitution of the potassium chloroplatinite for the
lithium chloropalladite would have little negative effect in this regard.
The substitution of the platinum salt for the palladium may in fact remove
the red element from the color of the prints and produce blue gray to blue
black shifts in much the same way as I have observed with gold toning
platinum and palladium prints. I will report any experimental results in
this area.
Another interesting observation is that when gold is used, after
printing and while the print I still dry, steaming the print will intensify
the image. The intensification can be observed while the steaming takes
place. The steaming is done by moving the print about over the spout of the
vaporizer. Prints with higher percentage of gold show more response to the
steaming, even to the point of becoming harsh and gritty. I suspect that
using a more sophisticated humidity arrangement than a vaporizer spout
might prove to give more control over this highly useful phenomena. Left
alone with no further steaming after printing, the prints develop out pretty
much as they appear. As a side note I have observed a similar effect with
straight palladium Ziatypes, though much more subtle and not nearly as
dramatic.
Your comments and observations are always appreciated. I am especially
interested in any earlier work in these areas that people might know of.
I've read so much of the historical material, that it is always possible
that some of this is popping up out of my hidden memory bank and it would be
easier to just ot go to the orignal source. My main interest is to provide
a better platinum and palladium printing system.
Dick S.
Dick Sullivan
Bostick & Sullivan
Santa Fe, New mexico