The printing of the final version of Jars in the Window continues. No errors after four print layers, technically five, with the last run showing signs of gum pulling away in ways it just should not be doing. This is the fifth iteration of this printing attempt. I have been testing out two elements of my normal gum printing process. I've reduced the sizing from 2 1/2% gelatin sizing to 2%. The image as noted before, will tend to fall into the paper a bit more. I mix my own gum solution at about twice the viscosity of the commercially available liquid gum at 14 baume. I mix to 50% solution. There is no known conversion for baume I can find but a guesstimate would be at approximately 25%-30% solution at best. That would require a bit more sizing to keep the pigments, suspended in the gum, from getting past the sizing, staining the paper directly. That, doesn't float off.

Why begin altering the process at this stage. I would have to confess that I had just never done so before. I learned of the gum process through "The Keepers of Light" book (1979) a couple years after it came out. No need to tell you how deeply satisfying that was at the time, having a guideline to follow for hand coating processes, something that drew me in without much effort. It was just so personal, what scratch cooking is to a chef. I was never much into Bisquick developing to begin with and began early on, learning and using the base chemicals for mixing developers and related solutions. I followed the starting point for gum printing as offered up in the book. Why not? It's supposed to work, it's in the book. The results were immediately satisfying. How it was I knew printing times & float times/water temperature variables sufficient to arrive at a decent image I'm unable to say beyond instinct.

The driving reason I have backed off the sizing is to leave the paper a bit softer, less wrinkled stiff in between printings. The reduced sizing has indeed done that, and with the thicker gum mixture I can get away with it, without the image falling into the paper more than desirable. What is slowly returning is the printing instincts. What I am beginning to be able to accomplish is printing to the light. That is, finding the ambient, and more direct light in a scene, and capture it, hold it right at zone 6 or zone 7, depending on how it is to affect the scene. In this image, I have been working to capture the brilliance of the light coming through the window, how that affects the interior walls and counter top, as well as how it plays on the white windowpane, and the even brighter objects outside the window, which is several stops difference than the interior.

This image shows four color layers on the print thus far. This sets up the framework for the image. The yellow dichromate stain is still in the print, which shifts the overall color to a sort of yellowish color with cool tones underneath. That is mostly because the last print layer was a medium mixture of Phthalo Blue, which I normally use to represent the Cyan of CYMK. To shift the primary color back to a warm neutral color the next layer will be a thin mix of Rose Madder. The final print layer will have three split colors applied, in three different areas, all outside the window. The next color layer will be printed to leave the white windowpane zone 7 on the part opened, and zone 7-8 on the window frame area the windowpane is hinged to. That white is the dividing line between inside and  out. The overall scene is a bit wider than the first print, as well as having much better textural detail, and light ambience.

Gum Dichromate Print ~ 8x10
4th color print layer ~ with yellow dichromate stain