Re: duotone cyanotype VDB

Hi Rajul!
The student mixed gesso, acrylic matte medium and water, equal parts, and
used 2 coats of this. That is all I know, but since the bookstore doesn't
carry many brands at all, I am assuming it is standard art stuff by Liquitex
or Golden. Hope this helps.

Oh, she also overexposed each a stop I think it was, so even with this mix,
there is still fading that occurs.

Their comments, when I asked them whether they liked doing this assignment
or not and whether I should continue teaching it, was that it should be
taught at the end of the semester when they had more experience under their
belt. So it wasn't easy to get a good image!
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Venkatram Iyer" <eyeear@telus.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 8:33 PM
Subject: 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 22:09:19 2006