RE: Gum hardening: top down experiment good image

Damn right it's awesome! Love it - congrats, Marek.
Kate M

-----Original Message-----
From: Katharine Thayer [mailto:kthayer@pacifier.com]
Sent: Friday, 14 April 2006 3:28 a.m.
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: Gum hardening: top down experiment good image

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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