Finished Gum Prints

So far I have been speaking in theory when it comes to gum printing, and now can show actual results, derived of the theory applied. I posted an image of each new gum after the first coating to give some perspective into how the image progresses. I don't post images of the gum as it goes through the coating layers due to the dichromate stain which masks the image in the first place.

As I wrote earlier, the gum process is very personal, and unique to each printer. The variables that the printer has at her disposal are numerous, all the way through the printing process. There simply is no 'standard' way of printing a gum. No matter what is said of it. Some of the variables for controlling the print include; intensity of pigment~ each print layer, order of the color layers for printing, shape of the contrast index curve of the negative, print time, float time, temperature of water, and additional manipulations during floating. An image can be printed ten different ways, and each would be a unique 'painting' of the image.

These gum prints were made on Fabriano 140# hot press watercolor paper;
Paper was pre-shrunk & dried, then sized twice with 2 1/2% gelatin, drying in between;
Coating went something like this; Gouache Black, magenta, yellow, cyan, a split coating of yellow and yellow ocher (two different areas of the print, to shift colors to green and brown, respectively), cyan again, and finally yellow.

I controlled the color of the sky, to a degree, using print time and float time to keep it clear for some of the coatings; sky is Zone 6, so I printed only to that tonal range and floated away anything left over. This was a more complex print due to the large contiguous area of the sky, which is expected, usually, to be somewhere in the realm of blue. It doesn't have to be, and nothing says you can't put color to specific areas of the image to enhance or alter the final color. That is the point of having the printing freedom of the gum process.

I have also commented on my color abilities, and the lacking thereof. I am also not any sort of digital software ninja master, so my controls and manipulations are corralled into a narrow slice of possibilities. My effort is to keep the posted image as absolutely close as I can get to an equal presentation of the original.

Gum Dichromate Print ~ 10 color layers
"The Old Jerome Hotel" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique
Jerome, Arizona