From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 05/09/01-11:34:16 PM Z
Oh my.. well...
Some of this discussion about colors for gum seps has been -- um, how to
say this tactfully, well, tactlessly -- *useless,* in fact less than
useless, because just naming a "pigment" without the manufacturer's name
attached is about like saying "red." Worse actually -- "red" doesn't claim
specificity, and "alizarin crimson" does.
There are two issues-- first, what the hell pigment is actually in the
tube being called, for instance, "Crimson Lake," or "Alizarin Crimson,"
and 2nd, how much of WHATEVER pigment is in there is actually IN there...?
For example, Wilcox (hateful STUPID book, manages to make a ton of really
good info practically inacessible due to the cutesy visuals like
kindergarten -- but I digress) lists a lot of paints by different mfrs
named Crimson Alizarin that are indeed the bad old alizarin crimson, and
many more ALSO bad old alizarin crimson with tube names like Madder
Carmine, Crimson Lake, Alizarin Carmine, & so forth. BUT.... THESE ARE
MARKETING NAMES. Some paints with names like that are actually
quinacridones, which are excellent colors. For example, LeFranc &
Bourgeois Crimson Lake is a quinacridone violet.
But do not on that account think you can just buy any old Lefranc &
Bourgeois, because they also make a Crimson Alizarin, as above. And so
forth.
The short answer (well it took a while to get here, but short compared to
all there is to say) is buy Daniel Smith watercolors in the 15 ml size.
Their catalog AND their tube list the actual pigments, and other qualities
(archivality, transparency), their prices are much the best for "artists"
watercolor and their concentration of pigment is excellent. In comparison,
I bought some Rowney Permanent Rose (on sale), which the book said was
actually Quinacridone Red, but it turned out to be so anemic pigment-wise
it took 4 times the paint to get the depth of color of the DS Quinacridone
-- and then the emulsion gets too thick with paint to coat or develop
well.
If you want to make your own personal-style color separations, try out all
sorts of colors, but the closest to standard *process* colors in
watercolor pigment are probably Quinacridone red, Thalo blue, and some
strong transparent yellow, maybe Hansa (arylide). Keith Gerling, for one,
does some fey and fascinating transpositions, but you might not want to
*start* there.
As for the business about not getting strong colors in color seps... I
cannot imagine how that is achieved. With either DS, Winsor Newton, or old
Liquitex (no longer made), I had to keep *cutting* the amount of pigment
because color was too strong for color separations. My first color
separated prints were actually garish -- although they didn't look like
cibachromes, it wasn't the lack of chroma, but the different texture, the
tactile & relatively mat surface vs. the smooth plasticky sheen of ciba.
What comes to mind is... fear of staining (which has in fact NOTHING to do
with amount of paint, but we've been there, and I showed the test strips
in P-F #2 to prove it), or the paint is an inferior brand full of fillers,
or the pigment has low covering power, or possibly a TOO-FLAT negative, so
you can't get contrast without fogging, or maybe a too thick gum, so you
can't put in enough pigment without flaking. Or if you're using dry
pigment, possibly any of the above, OR the powder is adulterated with
starch or other filler. Or if we're talking color separations -- maybe
something just plumb wrong with the seps.
As for that stuff about gum by its nature *staining* -- absolutely,
perfectly, purely and eternally incorrect. Nor does it take any special
skill, experience, or mastery to avoid staining. Whosoever doesn't take my
word for that may come to visit, stay in the room with the 62 fishing rods
and the computer boxes & let me show them, not just first prints from
space-cadet undergraduates who didn't get staining, but my own first tests
when I had in my life made all of one gum print and was doing panic prep
before teaching a class... Even paper with NO SIZE AT ALL didn't stain
hardly at all (if it's a nice paper -- some papers are ugly & will stain
if you say "paint" within their hearing. Some gelatins or gums are just as
bad. And some paints are made with dispersal agents for reasons known
perhaps to the manufacturer, probably thinking they're being helpful, and
they will stain, too, though most don't.) But, please, don't get me
started...
PS. Many companies do list the pigment along with the poetic name on the
tube of *artists* quality watercolors, but Rowney still doesn't.
Judy
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