In a message dated 96-07-17 23:29:07 EDT, you write:
<< They wanted to know,
1. How big are the originals?
2. Are they CMYK or RBG?
3. How did you get the whites of the eyes so white?
I wanted to know,
4. Did you use a hardener on the "hard gelatine" you said you used for
sizing?
5. Was that photo gelatine or the croda deionized?
6. Do you make your own separations?
7. From 4x5 chromes?
.... I worked alone for a lot of years and even now sometimes there is
little appreciation for what I am trying to do. A recent reaction from a
designer at a record company was "Oh, Color Xerox's! So?" And yes these
are all pure gum prints. When I started printing I had only seen a couple
of gum prints and didn't know that you couldn't get a good D-max so I kept
printing till I did.
One of my problems in life is I become bored easily. Since most of the
prints I sent you were printed between 1990 and 1993 I might not do them the
same way a second time.
To answer your questions. My original size obviously depends on the neg.
As I have been able to make the negs bigger, I made bigger prints. Most
of my prints are between 11X14 and 16X20 on a 20X24 piece of paper. These
earlier prints are mostly 11X14. In my new work I don't like to coat
outside the area of the negative at all, sometimes I just fall in love
with the edges, so the bigger negs give me more room to play.
The veil, Donna, and Sharon were made directly from 35mm transparencies
probably Kodachrome onto 11x14 Super XX. I made the separations myself
and got into the ballpark with an old, old Kodak densitomiter. I remember
Todd Walker said some years ago he made his seperation negs by getting
them to look about right. So I don't drive myself nuts getting them
exact. I followed the instructions that came with the film to make the
separations. They are CYM no K. I found that I get a pretty good black
without printing black pigment.
Continued next message.