"The Quiet Pond" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

 This print is of an earlier era of my gum printing; from 1983. The gum prints I made nearly forty years ago, were not the same as the prints I make today. They were all full layer coating, using the basic CYMK printing format, using a single b&w negative, same process I use today. The defining change came with this print. This print began as a CYMK four layer print, before adding locally applied color(s). The trees in the background are not layers of colors. The numerous colors were applied using a very small, pointed brush, dotting the colors on individual leaves on the trees, using a magnifying loop.

The final touch, was using a very shear mixture quinacridone gold, the color of sunlight, brushed over the center of the image, including mostly the pond area, where the light was falling, to accentuate the effect. I knew the variables of control for gum printing at the time, but just the straight forward, historical application. This print was a test. A sticking your neck out, try it and hope for the best, being the risk was worth the reward, if I didn't make a mistake. That print took thirteen print layers and over twenty color mixes before it was finished. And yes, my inspiration for this derives of my love of Impressionism. That has been the goal since I began printing. This print was the first attempt at that technique.

The printing paper I used back in those days was Arches Hot Press watercolor paper, sizing the paper with two dips in a 2 1/2% gelatin solution. Back then I didn't preshrink the paper. Most of the early prints were simple four print layers using CYMK colors. They were also 5"x7" prints on 8"x10" sheets of rag paper, so there was little, to no shrinking, interfering with the printed image. The negatives went through a Burke & James 5x7 view camera. These days, the digital negatives I make, print 11"x14" gums on 15"x19 1/2" sheets of Fabriano Artistico rag paper, and that does shrink, about 1mm-2mm after several applications in water. I preshrink the rag paper three times, fully drying overnight, then put them through two submersion dips in Know Gelatin 2 1/2%, which sizes the paper at the right level for applying a 50% mixture of gum/dichromate mixture. Commercial, premixed gum, is 14 Baum, approximately a 37% mixture. One dip in 5% gelatin, is not the same as two dips in 2 1/2%. The sizing needs to match the gum mixture.

The gum printing I do today, continues the work I did with this print, using the same techniques. The thirty years in between printing back then, and now, hasn't lessened my passion for this process. Gum printing remains the rarest of all photographic printing processes being done today. Along with that, all my gum prints are unique, no copies, no artist's proof. Just the one print image. For me, that makes them more inviting for serious collectors. Being gum prints can last up to a thousand years, there be plenty of time for that to happen, regardless of who owns the prints in the meantime.

Gum Dichromate Print

"The Quiet Pond" ~ 5"x7"

Eugene, Oregon 1983