And it seems that Sam is not alone in encountering difficulties with Vandyke.
Maybe it isn't quite so easy! I too would love to hear from other Vandykers
out there.
I am getting very uneven Vandyke results, even after conscientiously and
meticulously processing each piece of paper. Well, so I thought. That is, I did
my processing following some 6 or so published sources.
> One of the difficulties I've encountered is paper choice. Some papers just
> don't work well with Vandyke. Cranes Kid Finish works well, while Cranes
> Resume does not.
I have no access to Cranes papers but I recently did a huge batch of Vandyke
and cyanotype prints on Fabriano artistico, with some very satisfactory results
(if I may say so myself, some of the images worked very well) but with a huge
Vandyke failure rate too. Many prints yellowed quickly for no reason that I
could figure. And I can't pinpoint the problem for the life of me.
Judy also raised a question similar to Sam's, in her assessmnet of "Ansel
Adams'" gum printing. There is a lot of untested published literature out
there. But also as someone else pointed out, (Wayde Allen I think) the
variables are rather overwelming! And so called scientific testing is not
without its own problems.
This summer (yes, northerners, we've already had ours) I got fabulous rich
blues with the old style cyanotype (on Fabriano artistico). I was really
thrilled with the results (at least something went right in the face of so many
failed brown images). That blue was obtained in close to 100 percent humidity,
and in temperatures of around 30 degress centigrade (that's Sydney in February
for you). I am now therefore convinced that high humidity is great for old
fashioned recipe cyanotype. But maybe the humidity and heat was what made my
Vandyke results so unreliable... And when I get round to trying Dick's Ziatype
(finally), somehow I will have to de-humidify my workroom. It seems that many
on this list have the opposite problem.
As a further query, has anyone got any thoughts on if the (unexposed) Vandyke
solution coated onto paper, deteriorates if left overnight, or longer?
I think that I am going to have to go back to the drawing board, as they say.
I've got another Vandyke question but I'll save that for another post.
Cheers
Catherine