Multi-layered Gum Technique

The obstacles and impediments I've been dealing with these past months have been interesting. The water leak and damage to the room from which this is written has been repaired, new floor and all. The self-inflicted wound from the miter saw, well, that was simply stupid. Two never do things for me are never work a miter saw with a rip blade unless your head is in the game, or attempt to work on a gum print, for the same reason. Both can return the same can't believe your eyes results. I sealed the deal with the above affirmations after said rip blade made contact with my thumb. The fortunate part being it was my left thumb, which one doesn't need for typing.

I had had every intention of continuing the momentum on posting results of the printmaking techniques being used to make the print posted. The persistent obstacle being the death of my printer. That should be resolved soon, relatively speaking, as it's been months since I was able to print a functional digital negative. Pain, that. I'm still looking at another two or more weeks before that resolution arrives. In the meantime, more gum printing.

I am still loathe to show an unfinished gum print, part way through the printing process, as it tends to be rather deceiving. It does show the framework of the image, yet simply won't represent where it is going or how it will look after clearing the dichromate stain. I am currently working on an image I printed from an enlarged paper negative, thirty years ago. This will be the most complex gum I ever attempted. At this stage of the process, there have been fourteen printings, using thirty applied color layers. It is shaping up well. I haven't made any errors, which is exactly why I've learned the hard way that if your head isn't in the game, do not pick that print up. If you screw up a silver or palladium print, it can be redone the same day, no problem. Mess up a gum print that you've spent six weeks working on and it becomes exponentially painful.

As noted before, there are no boundaries or fences around gum printing. It allows for a very wide spectrum of treatments to arrive at the finished image. I have a gum print with two color layers that worked quite well, also printed from an enlarged paper negative. It was printed as duo-tone, using black gouache as the first coat then a second thin layer using a burnt umber to add the warmth to the image. The image was a conductor standing next to a passenger car of an historic train. That image, and the one I am currently working on demonstrate the wide range of possibilities of gum printing.

It also demonstrates another, more subtle difference between the two techniques. The fewer color layers applied, the more pigment is needed in each applied layer to end up with a fully replicated image. The trade off being the finer details of an image. Fewer, more pigmented coats do make an image, but applying sheerer layers of color, which necessitates many more layers, brings out far more textural detail in the image, more like photo realism. Going with this technique, however, demands strict registration of the negative to print. Without that, multi-layer gum printing doesn't work so well.