From: jacques verschuren (info@jacquesverschuren.nl)
Date: 04/03/03-01:37:18 AM Z
----- Original Message -----
From: <bi3@georgetown.edu>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: Combotypes
> Chris--
>
> In response to your inquiry about "combotypes," this is something that I
> do quite often (various combinations). Often I print one process with
> the negative and the other with the positive.
>
> * gum over cyanotype: A lot of my "gum" prints start with a first
> printing in cyanotype. I never noticed any bleaching of the cyanotype
> by the gum.
>
> * gum over Van Dyke: This is another combination I like to use. Here I
> think the gum changes the character of the Van Dyke (not a bleaching,
> just something different).
>
> * Van Dyke over Cyanotype: My prints in the latest traveling portfolio
> used this combination. What follows is the information that I enclosed
> with those prints (probably longer than you wanted).
>
> From time to time on the list there has been discussion of printing Van
> Dyke over cyanotype. I've tried this in the past with little success
> (except for one print which I could never duplicate). In my original
> attempts, I was trying to print one negative in cyanotype and a
> different one in Van Dyke, making a "double exposure," one image in blue
> and the other in brown. For the examples in this portfolio, I tried a
> different approach.
>
> These prints all have a first coat of cyanotype, which was exposed and
> developed. After drying, they were recoated with Van Dyke emulsion and
> exposed under the same negative. They were then given a 2-minute water
> rinse and put into the fixer ( 2.5% sodium thiosulfate). After a final
> wash, they were hung to dry.
>
> The first exposure produced a typical blue cyanotype print.
Most talk here is about overexposing the cyanotype, but how long/much is that? I have tried times up to 8 times as long, resulting in images in which the darkest areas could absolutely not be retrieved after washing.
>Upon recoating with the Van Dyke emulsion, the print fades, sometimes looking
> worse than other times. After the exposure with Van Dyke, you have a
> brown print (nothing of the blue print shows).
which takes a much longer time to expose than the initial VDB print
>the magic begins in the fixer. The brown fades, revealing the blue underneath. If left in long
> enough, all the brown disappears and you are back to a blue print.
Does the fixer affect the cyanotype?
> Pulling it out part way and washing gives you a print with both blue and
> brown. As with toning, you need to get the print out before it reaches
> the state you want, since the action continues in the wash.
>
> Rereading some posts from last year, I saw that garimo wrote that he
> used the Van Dyke solution diluted 1:1 with water. Joachim wrote that
> he used "extremely feeble concentrations of cyanotype." Keith Gerling
> noted that "the most successful of my test images were with diluted
> emulsion." These comments led me to try some prints with diluted
> emulsion. As expected, the diluted cyanotype produced a lighter blue
> print. The diluted Van Dyke gave good results in my first tests but
> couldn't be duplicated.
>
> Some of the negatives I was using for this experiment were ones I had
> earlier printed as toned cyanotypes, so for comparison, I am including a
> toned cyanotype. I also tried toning a cyan/Van Dyke print. This
> lightens and softens the blues, but doesn't seem to change them to the
> brownish tone you get with a regular toned cyanotype.
>
> I thought I was getting interesting results with the first batch of
> prints I made. I was surprised to find that the darkest areas bleached
> back first. (In the enclosed prints, this meant that the sky reverted
> to blue, which was what I wanted for this image.)
Enclosed prints? I'd like to compare them to my results so far, so....url, please
Jacques Verschuren
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