New Prints ~ Soon

When one is old, things get done much slower, even when one continues to view the world through much younger eyes. So many interesting things visited upon me since my last post. Not that such is fare for this post. More to explain the lengthy absence.

As noted in the earlier post about cycles, I am beginning a new printing and writing cycle. What should be apparent from my posts that the prints I am making at any given time correspond to the book I am writing on how to do the process, the finished prints used as examples in the book. The last cycle was focused on the Kallitype print, most of which were printed already. What I was posting on mostly was the gum over palladium process, which I will continue, being this process has become the process I want to focus on for my artwork. The other printing, in the noble metals of silver and palladium, also continues, completing exhibition portfolios, as well as for the books being written about said processes.

The hallmark of the gum process is simply there are no real boundaries, thereby showing the printer's gesture, or the stylistic application of the process, like no other process. and what is more plainly seen is the artist's hand in shaping the final image. There is no standard beginning or ending, nor for that matter any standard consensus on general process procedure. The instructions from different authors writing on the subject vary in big ways. I've read a printer's instructions on the how to that pretty much stunned me. So, so different than how I would show how it is done. That will be the fifth and final photo book; The Alchemist's guide; to Gum Printing, which will also have a full section on gum over (silver, palladium, Pt/Pd, etc). It will also be likely the longest, most in depth of all the books, being there is so much potential and so many paths to take.

The next book, which I have officially begun will be "The Alchemist's Guide; to Printing in Palladium" with a full section on the 'double sodium' (Na2) platinum/palladium process. For my thinking if one is to write about a subject they should be proficient in that subject, with examples of what their work looks like. Simple as that. There will be prints posted as what my palladium prints looks like. Pretty much like the portfolio of palladium prints of Tombstone, Arizona, all in period dress and equipment in a period town.

I have posted images of each step in the gum process, layer by layer, to show how the colors begin to stack up, with the observed colors derived from subtractive color theory, same as what controls watercolors. Technically, a gum dichromate print is a photographic watercolor. The current prints being worked on are gum over palladium prints, very near completion, and I will be posting them here as they do get done. Stay tuned.