From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 02/15/02-12:21:24 AM Z
On Thu, 14 Feb 2002 Grafist@aol.com wrote:
> ...what are the format dimensions of
> your rock Gum prints? I feel I would need to go above 10" X 8" in order to
> capture the nuances of the natural forms of nature....to bring out or
> highten the designs.
John, it's my own experience/opinion that gum really needs to be 11x14 at
least... Although relatively smooth papers can be used, a paper with more
texture than, say, pt-pd, makes for easier gum printing, or at least
easier beginning. When you get smaller than 8x10, a paper grain could be
the size of important detail, which is (usually) debilitating.
But that's not why I'm writing... I'm writing about the idea of gum being
so terrifically difficult. A theme of the EARLY writing on gum was how
wonderfully simple the process was. Robert Demachy said "If I had read one
or two papers of the same order as most of the modern treatises on gum, I
should have fled, appalled by the tremendous intricacies of the process."
That was about 1905. Others for the next 20 years did insist it was the
easiest of processes.
But I note again that the process was complicated & confused by extraneous
system imposed on it circa 1930. The difficulty came in trying to adapt to
that misdirection.
Actually there is another difficulty-- it's the enormous variability. You
really don't know in advance what a "good gum print" looks like. But you
know (or think you know) what a "good" other print looks like. As for what
subjects are suitable for which process, i'd rather see someone attempt to
go AGAINST the grain (as it were) there.
best,
Judy
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