"Vase with Daffodils" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

 This image another flower print. I am finding the yellow roses, daffodils and other flowers have grabbed my attention. A 'primary' color I use in so many prints is Yellow Ochre. Mixed light, and it is a brilliant yellow color. Mixed thicker and it shifts into a golden color, replicating a late afternoon reflected sunlight. Mixed heavy and it becomes a golden brown. Probably one of the most versatile colors in the palate. 

Print times, as always, were very important for capturing and holding the highlights, a well as the textural detail of the glass vase the daffodils sit in. What I have been working on over the past months, is altering the gum mixture viscosity, color mixing and print times, to improve on the number of color layers needed to represent the full color scale and spectrum of the print image. That entails more color saturated print layers with a reduced print time, to keep the color within the tonal range desired, below the highlight areas of the print. Thinner mixtures are printed to the highlight areas, such that any excess color can be floated off in a short float time; usually from 1-minute to 2-minutes. This makes up the contrast control for the printing. Print times being a critical element of the process.

Gum Dichromate Print

"Vase with Daffodils" 8x10

"Arizona Scenic #1" ~ Gum Dichromate Print ~ Reprinted

 This is another print image I have reprinted. I printed the image in a similar fashion, although using different colors differently layered. Print times were also altered to arrive at a different feel to the finished image. There isn't much to explain beyond altering the outcome to the final image.

Gum  Dichromate Print

"Arizona Scenic #1" 8x10

"Inside a Tulip" Reprinted Gum Print

 More than once I have reprinted a gum print after posting the original. Not often, but has happened. In this case I simply wasn't happy with the print as it was. Thus, a reprint of the image. I want it right, as I had intended it to be, and in this case it had to do with the brightness of the finished print. I decided to add one more color layer, very shear of course, to add to the textural detail, printing to the edge of the highlights. It worked. There was more textural detail, but the brilliance of the image was dulled. I didn't like that. It was worth reprinting.

Reprint;

Gum Print

"Inside a Tulip" 11"x14"

"Arizona Sunset #2" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

 It has taken time to finish this print. Life. Family. On top of the three weeks of workiong with the image. Gum prints demand special focus and nurturing to be realized as pre-visualized. Thiis is a second image from the Arizona Sunset portfolio of images I have, yet to be printed.

Until more recently in my printing over the past forty years, I normally stayed away from series images, photographing whatever was in front of me at the time. When I am working on a series of images, like flowers, events like the Civil War portfolio, historical places, like the Tombstone and Jerome Portfolios of Arizona. Now I'm working on sunsets.

This particular sunset was photographed man years ago, and waiting for it's time. The location is Avra Valley, Arizona, outside of Tucson, AZ. This print is made up of twelve printed color layers. Sunsets are a particularly tricky to make, simply due to my near color blindness to red/green, and reds, oranges, yellows and similar colors make up said sunset. I don't actually see red in the sky in this image, but am told by color seeing indivuduals thiere is red there. Interesting, thiat.

Gum Dichromate Print

"Arizona Sunset #2"