Having completed eleven portfolios of print work, in the more traditional sense, people, scenics, studies, historical material and summer thunderstorms in Cochise's Stronghold in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. My focus will now be on printing flowers; in gum.
Having written a book on gum printing, the fifth book in the Alchemist's Guide; series, and having blogged on hand coated printing, and gum dichromate printing, I continue to learn new things, and evolve. For forty years I have always mixed my own photographic chemistry; developers, reducers, fixers, clearing baths, and other photo producing mixtures needed, including the gum I use for printing, beginning with the raw crystals. Things have changed in forty years. Where once I could by a pound or kilo or pure, clear gum ]acacia] in rock crystal form, today, if, one could find such a deal, it is now a spendy enterprise, as well as finding said crystals not so clear, leaving a sort of an amber fluid these days.
Over those forty years, I mixed my gum to a 50%; 50gms gum to 100ml of distilled water. There were no real sources for gum printing back then, with exception to the "Keepers of Light" book, which is how learned the basic process. The thinking was that such a thickness would rest a good amount of water color without staining, and, the layers would allow light to penetrate the layers of color, add to the depth of the image. Well, turns out, that works, although the primary problem with that being the ability to smooth that out, not leaving coating tracks.
I have shunned the commercial premixed gum because of its viscosity; at 14 baume. I found one source that offered up an equivalent viscosity of 37% solution. Give or take. My thinking being it was so thin it wouldn't hold up to the layering. I was wrong on that point. Being far less enthusiastic about today's selection of raw gum crystals I bought a bottle of the commercial gum. Very clear solution, which seemed really 'thin' upon first use. However, I can say that it does hold up to repeated layers, without over buildup or cracking. I also began using a 4" brush for spreading the gum on the paper, flattening out the gum mixture to a very, very thin layer, brushing left right, up and down. And that has translated to some pretty nice images thus far.
The print was made with the commercial gum, with eight print layers, slowing building up the textural detail. This is the first of many more flower gum prints to come.
Gum Dichromate Print
"Inside a Tulip" 11x14
