"Yellow Rose" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

The "Yellow Rose" print is finally finished. That had to wait until the Rose Bu\d print was finished, to use the printing board. The digital copy of the print falls short of the much richer yellow color of the petals that are lit up by the sun.  The brilliance of the sun on the petals that was the focus of the printing. There is also just a bit of visual penetration to the background, like a zone 2 shadow, where there is no texture or detail but it  an be seen that something is there. In the  digital copy the background just went dark. A failure in copying, not the print.

 This is the second flower print of what will become a portfolio of such prints. More roses, both red and yellow to print  for the rest of my life, as well as desert flowers, singly, close up, as this one, and some of a field of flowers.  I will be treating the different flower prints in different ways, some, holding to the original colors and some will be shaped in ways to enhance the print image. Two prints in process is The Blue Goose, an historic train that was still active when the image was taken, in 1982, and Capt Jack, the first print I have begun altering, to be something that would never be seen in reality. Stayed tune for that one.

 "Gum Dichromate Print ~ Unique                                                                                                                  8"x10" ~ Fabriano Artistica 140lb hot press watercolor paper

"Rose Bud #1" Gum Dichromate Print

 Best laid plans and all, then, Things Happen comes along and changes that. The Yellow Rose print remains nearly finished. Last minute decision to reprint a layer or two derives after clearing the print of the dichromate stain. Remove yellow from a print, with the subject primarily yellow, dins the depth of the color, making it pale, much less than can be done.

The hiatus from printing, at all, added to the time since last making a gum print, leaves prints not quite what had been expected. The nuances of color layering with the many variables affecting the print, all along the way, including the clearing when it is thought to be finished. Besides the Yellow Rose print, I have two other prints currently in some stage of printing. Not flowers. The two flower prints honed the instinctive touch, rendering ever finer prints. Like learning a language, printing comes under 'use it or lose it' of efficiency therein. One doesn't forget how to do it. The intuitive nature, inducing the finer nuances of the process 'get rusty'. Even after forty years of making gums.

This print consists of eighteen layers, using over twenty colors. That is because I was far too stingy with the mixtures, and likely just shy of print time needed. Too cautious. As always, the gum/color mixture opacity,  the print time, and the float time are the three variables controlling the print's primary characteristics. Keeping the negative constant. The printing is for the highlights, no different from any other printing process; for the vast majority of hand coated printing formats. Printing for the highlights. All the tones beneath the highlights fall into place, according to the contrast index and density range of the negative.

The opacity of the color influences how much color affect each layer will be upon existing colors, all stacked, one over the other as the printing proceeds. The color theory for gums is the same as watercolors; a subtractive color theory. The color layers adding up to a given color range and appeal when finished. The RGB gum color combination, especially when using color separations of the negative, is a soft pastel like colors, much like color film in the fifties. The CYMK printing format also realizes a very good representation of a color scene; this process has the black layer. The closer to full opacity of a color, when wiped over a clear material, into the light. I use a one ounce, 30cc medicine pill dispenser, as it is soft plastic and cleans well. It also allows the mixed gum with watercolor mixed in, to be wiped over the side of the vessel while looking into the light, showing how much light is coming through, and that, indicates how much the color layer is going to affect the colors below, as they are added up, divided by the light penetration.

The print time dictates how much of the gum will be soft enough to float off, during the floating on water. The more light upon the gum/colloid mixture, the more of it becomes permanent, impervious to any water application. Too little light and too much gum washes off during floating. These are of course the extremes, used as examples. There is a sort of hand shake between the print time ~ float time. One complements the other. What should dictates the print time is the negative, printing for the highlights. A simple test strip will show exactly this ratio. The sample that floats away just the right amount of gum that you wanted, happened within three minutes. On average.

The final part to play is the water temperature.  The warmer the water, the more area of the coated area will become soft, likely to float away. An overall removal of gum over the entire print area, which would affect about 50% of the tonal range, as the lower tones, zone 1, 2, and 3, representing black and dark shadow, will unlikely be affected by the floating. The upper tonal range can and will be affected by warm water. A finer control is using the float water at 65℉-68℉. This cools and firms up the gum at the lower tonal ranges, leaving zone 7 to be floated first, which should be times to below three minutes. I personally like that to happen between 1-2 minutes. These variables allow for a wide range of color achievement and color affect. The idea, in my mind, is doing so in a way the viewer can relate with, a sort of emotional attachment, because of the way the printer arrived at the finished print. That's the task.

This print is one which is not exactly as I had previsualized before I began. It did, arrive at an acceptable ending. After several weeks. For me, it is a bit heavy handed. Also printed on paper that tends to be a bit tricky to work with, from warping and twisting. I've settled on using only Hahnemuhle paper for the 8"x10" gum prints, and the Fabriano Artistico 140lb Hot Pressed watercolor paper for the 11"x14" gum prints. As I progress with printing the flowers, I may reprint this and destroy the old print.

Gum Dichromate Print

"Rose Bud" ~ Unique