> As I have said earlier, I am not heavily into tests unless there is a
practical > application. Did your tests give us reason to make any
changes to our practice > ? > > > Terry
Well, once again, Terry, you're way ahead of me, as you are able to tell
*in advance* which tests will prove "practical" and which not.... unless,
of course, you count as practical being able to cite your own evidence &
not simply the word of a "usually reliable" fella at the RPHS.
Practical or not, I prefer making my own mistakes. I have found far too
few "reliable fellas" in any of these processes, and one's own mistakes
are so much easier to explain away -- for instance:
A while back I said acrylic size for gum was "lousy," a statement which I
now realize was a gross overgeneralization which I should have known
better than. As Larry said so eloquently this week, in gum every variable
changes all other variables. (Yeah, I've said it too.)
My tests were (and remain) for one-coat printing, ie, one pigment-rich,
longest-possible scale coat. Acrylic size didn't handle that well, giving
less depth of color & grainy highlights. But, if you're planning to do
several coats anyway, acrylic size gets much better.
It's extremely easy to apply (1 to 8 to 1 to 10 with water), needs no
hardener, and (probably) doesn't wash off. Certainly it worked as size
for a tri-color print from Al Strauss's ink jet negatives (data posted
by him May 21 '96).
This is of course another topic entirely, and I leave further explanations
to Al, but unless both of us had incredible beginners luck, tri-color gum,
at least the digital kind, is much much easier than monochrome, in fact it
seemed we could do no wrong, in fact Al's *very first* gum print was
smashing!
So forget the lamp, ivory and jet blacks, forget brown and burnt sienna.
Think Quinacridone red (for magenta), Winsor or thalo blue (for cyan) and
yellow, practically any old yellow.
And finally, for those looking for bright archival colors, the new
synthetic pigments, such as Quinacridone red, the Dioxazines, Perylene Red,
Napthaline red (I'm doing the names from memory, which may be failing me)
as well as the thalos & a bunch of others are very bright, transparent,
and archival.
Some are available in tube watercolor (Daniel Smith has the Q red by name,
with WN & Rowney you have to force pigment name out of them), some
only in dry pigment (Kremer, or whatever your friendly neighborhood art
store carries).
Judy