Re: duotone cyanotype VDB

Chris,
Can you provide details re. the gesso, and acrylic matte that you used?
i.e. the manufacturer and source.
I have encountered fading problems running cyano on satista or vice
versa and would like to see if sandwiching gesso+acrylic will resolve
this.

Thanks. Rajul
On 4-Mar-06, at 8:13 AM, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:

> Good morning all,
> I love to post on the weekends because it seems everyone is out and
> about doing other things than posting and the airwaves get very dull..
>
> My last assignment the students did was duotone cyanotype/vdb, either
> one below the other. It was a very experimental assignment, to be
> sure, because the two processes don't really like each other--the
> potassium ferricyanide in cyanotype bleaches the silver in the VDB,
> and the VDB bleaches the cyanotype or takes over so much that the
> cyanotype disappears.
>
> We found out a number of things--that's what's so nice about having 15
> students, it's like doing 45 tests yourself--1. misregistration
> actually looks good! 2. And one student returned the print to acid
> of some sort (citric I think) and the cyanotype came back, which seems
> to prove the alkalinity of the VDB and fixer bleaches the cyanotype
> but doesn't remove it completely. 3. AND several of the students
> used a mix of gesso, acrylic matte medium and water in equal parts
> between the layers of VDB and cyano and that worked well. 4. A layer
> of gelatin between is less effective. 5. All got better results when
> overexposing each process. In fact, one of my favorites was a totally
> brown overexposed print that you could hardly see the image, painted
> over with cyanotype which immediately bleached the image up to
> visibility, and then exposed. 6. If you don't make sure to rinse
> well after all processes and return to an acid state the alkalinity of
> the paper, either from fixer or vdb or what have you, will creep in
> lavender.
>
> Most of the prints were of the "alternative" alternative variety, in
> other words, loosey goosey. I do have them scanned...and if and when
> my website is finished (grrr) I can post them. So if I were to do this
> warm/cool thing and want a perfect print it would be best to do the
> cyanotype/palladium I think (or palladium/gum).
>
> I would love other people's experiences on this shared here...what
> have I missed?
> Chris
>
Received on Sun Mar 5 21:33:20 2006