Jack also did a process that he claimed came from Mortonsen called
Etch-a-tone. The print is made on a canvas type paper, in the old days it
was Portrait Proof, which was a favorite of M's. The print is taped down to
a work surface and with a cotton swab coated with a painting medium
(Grumbrachers I believe). He then uses a dark brown (any color will do) oil
pigment and with aswab, coats the complete print. The print is now almost
invisible under the haze of brown. The oil is now gradually removed from the
print using more medium as a solvent if necessary. More is lifted from the
highlights and less from the shadows or vice versa. It sounds difficult but
in fact is quite easy. It's sort of an intuitive thing and what happens is a
very "painterly" image gradually evolves. More can pigment can be added and
removed if necessary. It's not the same as hand coloring the print as the
application and removal is done with a swab and circular rubbing of the
print, more medium and pigment being used if neccessary. Johnson & Johnson
will live you as you will end up in a sea of soiled cotton swabs.
I saw Jack MacDonald use another Mortonsen trick of working a print in a
similar manner with a fine pumice. The print was made about two stops too
dark and lightened in a similar way with a cotton swab and very fine pumice.
This far trickier as it is a one way proceess, unlike the earlier describved
process, you can't add back the emulsion, though he may have mixzed the two
processes. Mortonsen would make prints in this way (also using the wet
paper negative process I described earlier) and then make copy negs and from
these prints for sale. Once you have seen these processes done, you can see
them clearly in M's work.
Dick S.
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Dick Sullivan
Bostick & Sullivan
Santa Fe, New mexico