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

Okay Carmen, after noodling around with this a bit I've got another
suggestion for you. As I said earlier, I think my first suggestion about
the paper was probably not particularly useful, since it occurred to me
later that most people always size paper, and you probably do too. So
forget that one, and here's the next:

The tendency in printing white gouache over black, at least my tendency,
is to really load on the pigment, since after all we know it will take a
lot of white to cover black. The gum-pigment mix I used to print my
example before was so stiff with pigment that it left a void after the
stirrer when I was stirring it. We know that increased pigment
concentration results in higher contrast, and I think that at least in
my case, if not in yours, it was just too much pigment to give good
midtones. I was blaming the acrylic size, but I think on relfection that
probably played a much lesser role than the pigment concentration in the
absence of midtones.

Today I tried printing with a much weaker pigment mix, and found that I
got great gradations through the midtones, although the weaker pigment
means that the lightest areas will need another coat. So here's my
suggestion: I believe you'll get much better midtones by printing with
a weaker pigment mix and printing it twice, than you will by printing
once or even twice with a stronger pigment mix.

The print is developing glacially, as I accidentally overexposed it (was
interrupted mid-exposure, and since I don't have automatic cutoff on my
light, it exposed 5 minutes on what should have been a 2-minute
exposure). But when it's done, I'll post it so you can decide if this is
a helpful suggestion or not.
Katharine Thayer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carmen Lizardo [mailto:carmenlizardo@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 12 January 2005 6:15 a.m.
> 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
>
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Received on Tue Jan 18 20:48:45 2005