Re: new work: chemigram transfers to polymer photogravure

Thanks Kate!

Yes, I did some work with polymer plates before doing that piece. I like the
word you used, 'natural'. The process I use to create the figures/textures
involves setting up an environment that works like alot of natural processes:
convection, smoke rising, cloud patterns, chaos theory in general...anything
that involves the mixing of opposites (in my case, developer and fixer atop
wonderfully rich and tonally suburb silver -- You know, the other white meat,
"Where the black is really black" TM!).

Now that I have the B&W images coming through the way I want, I'm doing a bunch
of reading now on Johannes Itten's theories of color, which I'm fascinated by.
His ideas of color and depth perception are quite insightful -- they are filling
in alot of the gaps in my arts education.

Jon

Kate Mahoney wrote:
> Wow! Pretty amazing - did you have previous experience burning/wiping up
> plates...I like the images and the colouration seems quite "natural"if you
> could say such a thing :)
>
> Kate
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jon Lybrook" <jon@terabear.com>
> To: <list@chemigramist.com>; <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
> Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 12:00 PM
> Subject: new work: chemigram transfers to polymer photogravure
>
>
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>My work is taking a departure from the cool serendipidy of chromoskadesic
>>effects (the pastel colors apparent in B&W media when making chemigrams).
>
> I
>
>>decided I wanted more control over coloration, but keep the forms and
>
> textures.
>
>> Having finally gotten an answer as to how the colors actually happen
>
> with
>
>>chemigrams thanks to Polli Marriner's research, and inspired by David
>
> Hoptman's
>
>>presentation on Polymer Photogravure at APIS last summer, I've started
>
> work on
>
>>transferring chemigrams to polymer plates.
>>
>>After burning a dozen plates and making several dozen prints, (some
>
> interesting
>
>>enough, most horrible, some in black and white, some in color) I've
>
> started to
>
>>have some success.
>>
>>The only one I've got to show now can be seen here:
>>http://lytescapes.com/thejourneycontinues.jpg
>>
>>The image is from a cropped area (about 1" high) from a high-rez scan of
>
> 4x5
>
>>chemigram on ortho-litho film. The plate is 4x5 and is made without any
>>aquatint screen, from an inkjet transparency, and hand-colored (a la
>
> poupee
>
>>using cardboard cards and Q-tips) directly on the plate. I've been
>
> getting the
>
>>solid colors by packing the ink into the open bite areas, which were
>>unintentional at first, but I think I like them. Softer tones were
>
> achieved by
>
>>adding plate oil to the inks for increased transparency.
>>
>>In case it has to be said, kindly worded constructive criticism is always
>
> welcomed!
>
>>Look forward to hearing your responses. Have a great weekend.
>>
>>Jon
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
Received on Sat Mar 6 16:12:41 2004