"Two Friends" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

The newest print is now complete. I didn't photograph each layer on this print simply because of expediency, mostly, as well as simple energy levels. Outside the print room the energy is being used up moving twelve tons of river rock, spreading it over a rather large area, by wheelbarrow. So the viewer gets to see the final version. As I've mentioned more than once, each new print brings new insights, along with a deeper intuitive control of the printing, or "body knowing" level of understanding.

What I am working towards in my gum over printing is to keep the image color applications natural looking. Not a lot different than equating it to women's makeup. The makeup, when applied, should add a visually pleasing affect, without being seen. If you can actually see the makeup on the face, it's too much, like clown makeup. Thirteen year old girls trying out makeup for the first time learn this rule over the course of a few years of applying it. Same with gum printers. Just enough gum color applied to leave no trace of its application, just the subtle affect to the image, where applied.

I've divided this print image into two primary areas; background of cooler tones the and foreground of warmer tones, very close to the natural setting when the image was shot. Mid afternoon sunshine, with shaded foliage in the background. The foliage happened to be evergreens, which are a blue/green, not deep green. To be able to do this with some degree of control, I've had to step away from the traditional color spectrum of the pure CYMK printing order. That does work, and would have worked here, had I chosen that avenue. The drawback of that method is the reduced potential outcomes staying within those four colors. The print image will roughly show a 'color' image, yet much of it will be a more neutral (grayish) tone overall, with much less tonal separation of color, however subtle they may be. I would not have arrived at the cool to warm image I wanted staying with the CYMK colors, which I had always done in the past.

The colors applied to this print image were Pthalo Blue (background foliage) & Yellow Ochre (foreground) *printed to the tonal range of the silver dress & white cat fur, just so the floating began to affect both. Second layer of gum color, was a second split color run; Cadmium Yellow (background foliage) & Van Dyke Brown, very sheer (foreground) printed just below the dress' density range. With the mixtures apparently at the right levels to arrive at the subtle colors in the end, I'm quite pleased with this print. Usually every print has one little detail the printer would like to alter, just a bit, to make the better image. Not this one. It is everything I had intended, and hoped for.

Gum over Palladium Print
"Two Friends" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon