Re: Gum print formaline

> at the same time, it would be much more difficult to measure the amount
> of hardening by staining or not staining, since there is so much
> variability in staining depending on individual practice, that is
> completely unrelated to the type of hardener.

Sorry, decided that was maybe too cryptic and needed a fuller
explication: Certainly for one's own practice, whatever works is what
works. But when one wants to make general recommendations about how much
is the right amount of hardener to give the right amount of hardening
for gum printing, then I don't see how you would determine this on the
basis of staining, since individual results are so different re
staining.

For example, my experience over time has been that on most papers, my
highlights are pristine whether I print unsized, sized without
hardening, or sized with hardening. So I would not be able to tell
whether a gelatin was hardened by whether or not I got staining in the
highlights; I probably wouldn't have staining in the highlights
regardless.

When I find a paper that doesn't allow printing several layers without
some staining, or for some other reason needs to be sized (such as
Fabriano Uno which printed with an attenuated DMax without sizing) then
I do size it, but my favorite size is gelatin mixed with gesso, which
gives a lovely smooth surface and you can even do it indoors.
Katharine
Received on Thu Feb 3 12:54:19 2005