Re: Help with gum pritns on black paper with white Gouache.

Hi Carmen and Loris,
Carmen, I tried printing a lighter pigment on a darker background. If you
go to my work at the Lee Gallery:
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/leegallery/events.php
and scroll down to "additional works here" and click on no. 6, and try to
enlarge it, you will see the green ghostlike figure on the right side of the
image.
I printed in straight green at first and realized it wasn't showing up, nor
did yellow or any transparent pigment, so I added titanium white to make it
more opaque, and it did show up finally (that image is several layers), but
very subtly. However, the look of the image is not the same as using
transparent pigments on white paper. My guess (and also from printing white
on dark backgrounds, most of which greyed out on me) is that the hardened
gum layer really looks like what you are seeing--thicker and thinner areas
of gum that because of the opacity of the pigment, you do not get the effect
of a tonal range.
If you've ever done silkscreen, it looks similar to that to me.
I might suggest one of two things: enjoy the look you get, or try changing
your neg to a diffusion dither bitmap like you do with silkscreen to get a
feeling of tone, even though the image is made up of dots.
I do my negs that way at 200 input, 200 output, diffusion dither and they
look very photographic.
If you could do enough layers to finally build up an image on the dark
background, maybe that would work, too. It did not for me, though. The
white of the paper base really contributes more than we may think to give
the look of a tonal range.
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Loris Medici" <loris_medici@mynet.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 8:30 AM
Subject: RE: Help with gum pritns on black paper with white Gouache.

>
> Hi Carmen,
>
> Do you know the pigment in paint the you use? I recall white paints with
> Zinc Oxide won't let UV light pass through them - maybe you should try a
> more expensive Titanium White paint. Please bear in mind that I never
> tried gum over black paper - this is just what came into my mind reading
> your question. And of course paper itself may be causing the problem
> too...
>
> Regards,
> Loris.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Carmen Lizardo [mailto:carmenlizardo@yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 7:15 PM
>> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>> Subject: Help with gum pritns on black paper with white Gouache.
>>
>>
>> Dear List,
>> I've been trying to make gum prints on black paper
>> with white Gouache from a positive transparency. I am
>> using black Folio print paper, some very cheap white
>> paint I found I my old art bin. The problem is that I
>> loose all of the subtleties in the image and only get
>> very high contrast. Is it possible to print mid tones
>> with gouache paint? Do the quality of the paint
>> matters when it comes to gouache? Maybe is the paper?
>>
>>
>> Thank you so much for all of the great advice.
>> Love,
>> Carmen
>
Received on Thu Jan 13 07:53:07 2005