From: Dave Rose (cactuscowboy@bresnan.net)
Date: 09/01/03-07:43:33 PM Z
I've made many beautiful gum prints with Varn's Gum Arabic. "Printers gum"
is definitely suitable for making gum prints.
I'm using Rives BFK with Knox gelatin as sizing. My procedure: 1) Soak
paper in hot water and dry (pre-shrink). 2) Soak in hot gelatin solution,
squeegee and hang to dry. 3) Repeat step 2. 4) Soak in formalin (hardener)
and hang to dry.
The "caramel-brown color" evident in your prints could caused by: dichromate
stain, pigment stain, overexposure, poor or nonexistent sizing, fogging by
excessive ambient light while the coated paper is drying.... or a
combination of the above problems. With proper exposure and development,
you should get clean whites in unexposed areas.
Best regards,
Dave in Big Wonderful Wyoming
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Nored" <gnored@centurytel.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 5:58 PM
Subject: Gum Woes
> Having made my first acceptable single-coat gum print a
> few weeks earlier with out local alt-process group, I boldly
> decided to take the process home and start playing with
> it. I used the same paper (Fabriano Artistico), the same
> Windsor Newton lamp black water color paint and a
> saturated solution of ammonium dichromate in the same
> proportions as before.
>
> The first prints were terrible -- kinda like Ed Buffaloe's
> famous black prints, but with some hint of image. I
> thought the problem might be "staining" so I decided to
> try sizing the paper with gum arabic.
>
> I coated several sheets of paper with gum/dichromate
> solution, omitting the ink. To my surprise, this paper
> didn't come out white after exposing to sun and washing --
> it comes out a nice caramel-brown color. Further
> experiments yielded nice photograms of white and brown
> (better than the prints with pigment in them).
>
> So now I have a zillion questions. A few of them are:
>
> Is the gum itself supposed to turn brown like that?
>
> Is there a way of hardening the gum without creating the
> brown color?
>
> Is printer's gum suitable for sizing paper? (I used Varn's
> 14 Baume 100% Gum Arabic solution which I bought at a
> printer's supply house.)
>
> For that matter, is printer's gum really suitable for making
> gum prints?
>
> TIA
> Gary Nored
>
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