There is little activity in Canada in this process (none in any schools I
could find). Last March in Tampa, Florida at GraphicStudio, I met Johan
de Zoete at a photogravure symposium. He is from Utrecht and is an
accomplished practitioner of the traditional process. Also at the
symposium were Deli Sacilotto and Jon Goodman, two of America's best
gravurists. They each had different approaches to the 'aquatint' portion
of the process which may interest you.
Goodman applies an aquatint of several *fine* layers of rosin
OVER the dried gelatine resist. This seems like a revival of Talbot's
original methodology. The results compare favourably to asphaultum and
avoid the foul biting associated with the extreme fineness of the asphaultum.
Sacilotto makes a random dot *screen* and exposes the resist in
the same way that a commercial gravure screen is used. His screens are
made from a special pebbly mylar, contact printed onto lith film. They
are easily as fine as asphaltum (300 to 600 line) and again, avoid many
of the foul biting problems. Under magnification, the plate looks like
it was made using asphaltum.
I did try asphaltum for awhile, but found it too problematic and
unsafe. I had built a dedicated coating box for it, and had to dispose of
it due to the mess it made, etc...
I hope more of you out there can join in the information exchange....
Dave Morrish ph (709)637-6333
Department of Visual Arts FX (709)637-6383
Sir Wilfred Grenfell College
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Corner Brook, Nfld.
Canada A2H 6P9