From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 02/02/02-01:02:54 AM Z
I've been spending a fair amount of time with Arches Platine the last
few weeks, evaluating it for a gum printing paper. Some observations:
It has two different apparently sizing-related "issues." The first is
the blotchiness it develops when wet, which disappears on drying and
doesn't appear to affect the image. The second is apparent in some
sheets and not in others. It appears immediately on coating; it
manifests as very small dark spots or speckles where the coating is
absorbed differentially; and once it has made its appearance, the print
is not salvageable, (unless of course the printer finds the speckles
attractive).
I have found that ammonia, which I use as a chemical "dodger" in the
development stage of gum printing, is useless with Platine. With other
papers, I can float ammonia across an area that I want to be a bit
lighter, and the ammonia will gently loosen and lift excess hardened gum
and pigment there while leaving the image intact. With Platine, the
ammonia blasts right through the image and out the back of the paper.
The wet spot it leaves in the back of the paper will disappear on
drying, but the white spot in the print where the gum and pigment were
stripped off the paper is there forever.
kt
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