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Re: dichromate and the plate
At 9:38 AM -0500 3/27/00, Sarah Van Keuren wrote:
I wonder if anyone nowadays, besides myself and my students, has tried brushing ammonium dichromate onto paper and then applying pigmented gum on top. The dichromate can be wet, dry or inbetween, each state giving a different effect. This promotes a painterly approach since different colors can be brushed on and blended together. I do this as the step after producing prints in pure dichromate. Each student chooses a color and brushes a patch of the pigmented gum onto the large sheet of dichromated unsized BFK with some overlapping. I got the idea from a 1910 issue of Photo Miniature lent to me about 20 years ago by Paul Cava of Philadelphia. I could tell more about this way of working if anyone is interested.
About 10 years ago one of my students did that and it worked very well. We were trying to find a way to "rainbow row" different colors in one printing, as well as to find a way to coat evenly without disturbing the paper fibers. We figured the most even way to apply the gum was using air brush, but blowing dichromated gum all over the place was a definite no-no. So what we did instead was to brush on dichromate only. Let dry. Then airbrush gum solution on top. A number of advantages:
- you can take time brushing the dichromate, making the edges as expressive as you want;
- with airbrush, you can lay down a very thin layer of gum, if desired;
- it's easy to mix and match different colors with just one printing;
- you can almost "burn" and "dodge" with the way you lay down the gum;
- gum falling outside of the dichromated area will wash out, so you don't have to worry about the edges.
Of course there are down sides too, mainly that good airbrushing takes practice. And cleaning the instruments take time.
It is a highly viable way to make gum prints that could give a different kind of subtlety. BTW, we were not aware of the Photo Miniature article.
Sam Wang