Re: direct gum print

Oh wow. That's gorgeous. You may have me switching to gum!

~Christine

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.....The Sky is round, and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The Wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours....
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

~Black Elk

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Marek Matusz <marekmatusz@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 17:28:58 +0000

>Katharine,
>Thanks for such a fast action.
>Marek
>
>
>>From: Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>
>>Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>>To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>>Subject: Re: Gum hardening: top down experiment good image
>>Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 08:27:58 -0700
>>
>>Here's Marek's print (it's awesome)
>>
>>http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/Marek.html
>>
>>Enjoy.
>>kt
>>
>>
>>On Apr 13, 2006, at 7:32 AM, Katharine Thayer wrote:
>>
>>>I'd be happy to add this to my website, Marek, just send it to me as a
>>>jpeg and (now that I have a better mail program than when I tried to do
>>>this with Chris) I can just take it and upload it.
>>>Katharine
>>>
>>>
>>>On Apr 13, 2006, at 7:06 AM, Marek Matusz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>It took me two day to sort thing out a bit. I have repeated the
>>>>experiments with the HP transparency coated on the emulsion side with
>>>>the thick gum mixture. I tried exposure form the back from about 5 to 30
>>>>minuts and every time the result was the same. I could see the image
>>>>developing, I would take it out of water and literally see it melting in
>>>>front of me. Even lying flat. It looked like gelatine meting, kind of
>>>>losing shape, becoming softer and ending up with a puddle of pigmented
>>>>gum (remember the Indiana Jones movie?). After removing all the gum from
>>>>the transparency I noticed a very nice tan image embeded in the
>>>>transparency coating. Kind of like a very thin of pyro stain. All the
>>>>details vere there if you held it to the ligh just so. So something was
>>>>happening with htis transparency coating that was messing up with my
>>>>experiments.
>>>>
>>>>Next logical thing was to put the gum on the uncoated side. I coated a
>>>>couple sheets, exposed through the back They all developed by dissolving
>>>>the unhardened gum from the top, revealing a continuous tome image
>>>>beneath. The image was rather robust, with no tendency to flake, slide
>>>>off or anything. Did I mention that on some of the sheets I removed the
>>>>coating by soaking in chlorox and scrubbing with a brush.
>>>>
>>>>It is so amazing how easy it was to make a good image. My coating was
>>>>very heavily pigmented and thick. I could barely see through it looking
>>>>directly into a 50W light bulb.
>>>>Same coating exposed from the front simply flaked away. Same emulsion
>>>>coated on paper and exposed in the usual way for 15 minutes mosty
>>>>flaked off with a very contrasty result that did not resemble the
>>>>original image to a great extent.
>>>>
>>>>I am really excited about making prints on glass and perhaps transfer to
>>>>paper.
>>>>I do not have a web page, but I scanned the transpareny in my flat bed
>>>>scanner (not in the transparency mode, it is just a reflective scanner).
>>>>Katharine maybe you can add it to you page or somebody else. I could put
>>>>it on one of the free web site, but I will not have time to mess with it
>>>>until the weekend.
>>>>
>>>>All this most likely does not relate to regular practice of gum printing
>>>>wityh very thin layers, where I think enough light is passed through to
>>>>harden the entire layer (pehaps a crosslinking is a better term) and
>>>>then during the development phase wash away the gum and pigment in
>>>>proportion to the crosslinking. Paper does interact as well and I see it
>>>>soaking dichromate from the gum solution on the first coat, just like a
>>>>lot of people have observed. Oddly enough this does not happen on
>>>>subsequent coats if you do multicoat gums.
>>>>
>>>>Experimentation rules
>>>>Marek, Houston
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>From: Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>
>>>>>Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>>>>>To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>>>>>Subject: Re: Gum hardening: top down experiment
>>>>>Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 17:05:21 -0700
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't know if anyone was planning to try this with Pictorico, but
>>>>>just in case, let me report that I just used my last piece of
>>>>>Pictorico for a quick experiment and I wouldn't recommend it, for
>>>>>several reasons:
>>>>>
>>>>>(1) Pictorico goes sticky when it gets wet, so it's very difficult to
>>>>>smooth out the coating; the sticky coating on the Pictorico hangs onto
>>>>> the gum the way it was laid down with the first stroke of the brush,
>>>>>and that's how it stays. You just can't move the gum around on the
>>>>>surface.
>>>>>
>>>>>(2) the coating on the Pictorico hangs onto the dichromate, as some
>>>>>paper/sizing combinations do, and the Pictorico will take on a bright
>>>>>yellow cast that will have to be removed with metabisulfite.
>>>>>
>>>>>(3) you can't dry it with a hair dryer. This may not be a problem for
>>>>>those who don't usually use a hair dryer, but that's how I always dry
>>>>>my gum layer, and the heat turns the Pictorico white. This cleared to
>>>>>clear after a while, on the first drying, but on the second drying
>>>>>(after treating with metabisulfite and rinsing in water again) I found
>>>>>that the white didn't go away in some places.
>>>>>
>>>>>Other than those few things, it really makes a great image.
>>>>>Katharine
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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>
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Received on Thu Apr 13 14:33:35 2006