"Bella with Hat" ~ Gum over Palladium print

 This print won't go into the portfolio. It is destined to hang on my son and his wife's wall; his eldest daughter, my granddaughter, age five at the time. This was a special print for me, being who it was I was capturing on paper. The image wasn't difficult to print, being the elements printed out well using the standard CYMK formula; the palladium print being the K layer, then cyan [turquoise], cadmium yellow, then quinacridone magenta the third layer.

The image wasn't quite right with the overall color, what I could perceive of it anyway, so I asked my daughter, who sees the fuller color spectrum, what overall color she saw of the print. She said "platinum", which told me that the image was neutral, so, I added a layer of raw umber, in a shear mix, to represent skin tones, and warm the print overall. The final color layer was applied to her hat, using violet, again, in a fairly shear mix, enough hopefully that the color can be discerned by the viewer. I have to confess I don't really see that color, just the added depth of the image from the added color layer. I was also told, there is a small streak of red on her. Well, I still am unable to see it. That would have derived of the magenta run. A signature of the printer, color blind to red/green.

Gum  over Palladium Print

"Bella with Hat"

"Pow Wow Dancers" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

I have finally completed thel third and final print of the "Pow Wow Dancers" print series. It has taken a lot of time to complete the series, being the nature of the printing, that takes weeks to complete a print. Any  single irregularity or mistake and the print is jumk, start over. This print turned out to be sixteen print layers, using over twenty color mixtures. My printing in gum continues to evolve. The very nature of gum printing is a process without end, or boundaries.

When I began printing, controlling the tonal range of the image was paramount. That no longer is a primary factor for me. The overall lighting, the mood, is the focus now. Manipulating and controlling the light with each successive color layer becomes dicey, with each new print layer. A miscalculation of color density, or color choice can add to the image or destroy it. The destroyed versions are painful.

Gum over Palladium Print

"Wow Wow Dancers"

Tucson, Arizona