Re: Printing gum on hard surface

MARTINM wrote:
>
> "(...) what I'm after; what I need and what I'm making is
> hardened gum that replicates as closely as possible the hardened gum in
> a gum print, so it needs to be the same thickness as I would coat it to
> print gum."
>
> Since substrates like glass do not absorb water, you might have to change
> the concentration of your coating solution...
>

Actually I think this would relate more to a problem with coating than
to a problem with retention. I've never had a problem coating the glass;
it coats smoothly and evenly, no fisheyes no nothing, just a nice, even
coat, sticks to the glass very well. When I said earlier that the gum
doesn't stick to glass, I meant the hardened gum doesn't stay on the
glass in the water, not that the initial coat wouldn't stick. Sorry if
that was unclear.

And my statement above may not have been clear either. It's not that I
want the initial coating to be exactly the thickness of a coat I would
put on paper. What I mean is that the final dried gum coat should be
exactly like the dried gum coat of an actual gum print. I coat and
expose as usual, (and when I say "as usual" I don't mean that I expose
for the same amount of time, I mean I expose for the same amount of gum
hardening. Since I'm not putting the gum coats under 1/4" glass or under
a negative, the exposure time for the same amount of hardening is of
course less than it would be if I were making an actual gum print). The
wet gum on the nonabsorbent surface (mylar) "seems" thicker and more
jelly-like than wet gum on paper, but when the coat is dried, it becomes
very thin and almost invisible, just as a coat of gum on paper would be
if it didn't have any pigment in it. Just to be sure, I printed a
negative on one of these and dusted it with powdered pigment while the
gum was still wet, and voila, a nice gum print. So I think I've got it
right.

Katharine Thayer

Just to be sure that
Received on Sun Sep 5 08:40:42 2004