"Water Gourds" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

The new gum over palladium print is finished, finally. As time goes on I find myself taking more time with each gum print, with much thought going to tonal range, how far to print down, color choices for each layer, color values in the image, and several other variables and aesthetic factors that guide the choices all along the way. This print commanded over a week to make, as do most, and I am happy with it, overall. I would say the colors came out as planned, but the truth remains, I don't don't probably most of the colors in the print. Especially those in the lower light spectrum of reds, pinks, oranges and the like. That includes greens, being I'm mostly color blind to the red/green spectrum.

As I've noted on several occasions I print theoretically, using the principles of subtractive color theory. The stacking of sheer layers of watercolor(s), which then combine into different tones and shades of color, dependent upon the tonal range of the image. The middle tones of the image showcase color(s) more than shadow tones or black. Same with whites, which don't absorb any color, unless they are printed long enough to remain when floated. As always, one prints to zone 7, the textured whites, also the last tone to print in, first tone to float off, if done right.

The "highlights" of this image are of course the gourds, which are the focal point of the image, also the foreground of the image. The setting was under a thatched desert roof at Tumacacori Mission, south of Tucson, Arizona, in late morning sunlight. The overall setting is not dark, but soft lighting from the more brilliant sunlight outside the desert palapa style covering. No sides, just four sturdy posts holding up a thatched roof made of long limbs of Ocotillo. They are thorned of course. Desert. What I was after, ultimately, was the feeling and mood of a darkened area surrounded by sunlight, with the textures showing the effects of light. Brilliance I suppose. The color scheme I kept to what would be seen in that setting, of dobbed adobe, dirt, and one of the corner poles with the hanging gourds.

I applied most of the color layers locally, not the traditional method of adding one layer of color over the entire image, each printing. I began that way using CYMK printing, in variations of which color came on which printing, but still using those four colors. Now, I probably have two or three dozen tubes of watercolor I call upon as my palette of use.  Slowly I am moving away from "realism" as it were. Where I think I want to go is something akin to Impressionism, as much as that is possible in a photographic process, even hand coated. I simply can't fully imagine what that might look like, or how it would be accomplished. The shadow area in the print "The Portrait Stool" is an example of using several colors to represent one area.

Gum over Palladium Print
"The Water Gourds" ~ 8x10 ~ 1/3
Tumacacori Mission, Arizona

New Palladium Prints to Come

After two weeks of testing, making finished prints has begun. The variables for palladium printing allow for a lot of options. What can be controlled, using the same negative, is light source & light intensity, which controls the outlook of the tonal structure, the developer and developer temperature. Each of these variables alters the final image in different ways. What I was looking for was a warm toned palladium print of two Datura Blooms.

First test strips out were made using the UV printer, developed in ammonium citrate at 68-70 degrees. I moved to printing in sunshine, using north light, reflected light (off the house in full morning sunshine), and direct sunlight. I also began developing in potassium oxalate, the historically traditional developer. The oxalate is a warm toned developer and the citrate a cool toned developer for palladium prints. Temperature adds to the affects therein.

Ending up with over a dozen test strips in hand analyzing each one for quality of the white flowers, and the depth of the black background. I wanted the white flower blooms to show a tonal gradation from zone 6 right up to zone 8, on a couple small areas. Brilliance. I got that. Turns out the best tonal representation of that image was making the print in the UV printer for fifteen minutes. Developed in potassium oxalate, at 85+ degrees.

One of the characteristics of palladium printing is 'bronzing'. That occurs in the deeper shadows and outright blacks in the  image, whereupon the UV light upon those darker areas chemically begins to build up and reverse the blackening, beginning to appear to solarize, or 'bronze'. I have noticed it more using the potassium oxalate warmed over 80 degrees. What would be a deep dMax black if it were a platinum print, what is seen is more of a warm toned or soft black. The ammonium citrate at a cooler temperature isn't as visible, but there, none the less.

To correct for this bronzing, a couple drops of a diluted solution of sodium based platinum stops the bronzing, as well as deepening the black quite a bit. This process is referred to as the 'double sodium' process, otherwise known as the Na2 process. This was formulated by Dick Arentz and Richard Sullivan (Bostick & Sullivan) The testing also has to do with the fact that I am also writing a book on palladium printing; #4 in the Alchemist's Guild;" series. Knowing the process theoretically is not the way to write about it. I am printing a portfolio of palladium images, as well as platinum/palladium Na2 prints. I will be using some of the images for examples in the book.

I don't like to copy the fresh prints while they are wet, as they tend to dry down slightly differently. I was able to make two clean prints for the palladium portfolio, both Datura blooms. I will be posting an image of at least one of them tomorrow. I have also been making a gum over palladium print to add to the portfolio of studies. It is coming along nicely, and is ready for a final print layer before clearing and drying. I'll be posting a copy of that soon as well.

"The Portrait Stool" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

The newest gum over palladium print is another image I have long wanted to print. The photo was taken thirty five years ago, in what was to become a home studio, a framed in carport. The window was selected for portrait possibilities. Turned out to be a prescient thought as there were many to come from that window, on that stool. That was before I acquired a large commercial studio space some years later.

This print required ten layers of color to arrive at the color and depth needed to make this image work. Unfortunately, the biggest hurdle in showing this image is getting it to look like the original  print, and the biggest hurdle to that is I'm pretty much color blind to many of the colors applied. I don't actually see the red colors coming through the blues & ultramarine blues lain over them. The digital camera that copies said prints wants to show middle tones and detail, based upon color temperature (6500K) and hopefully indirect (north light) for copying. Still there never look like the original.

For those that have followed along through the last dozen or more prints, posted here, you will notice changes to my technique, color applications, as I continue to stray from direct realism, through gum application and the color pallet of that print. Those colors continue to expand to  include colors I had not used before, various shades of different colors, allowing me to have more options of color choice and transparency. I abandoned the standard CYMK printing venue some time ago. I am not all that drawn to 'true' colors of a scene, as normally seen every day, but variations of colors that create a mood of the setting. Being I am printing theoretically, it keeps things interesting. I do run a print through my color metric analysis person, whom sees the fuller spectrum of color, and is a watercolor artist, thus bringing excellent insights to subtractive color theory.

Gum over Palladium Print
"The Portrait Stool" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon ~ 1984

"The Photographer" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

The first of the two new gum over palladium prints is finished, ready to be seen. The second will get a clearing tomorrow, then be ready for viewing. Each new print brings a different challenge, as each image to be printed has to be printed in such a way as to work with the elements of the image, holding all the tonalities to their desired depth without altering the other tonalities in the process. That demands correct print time, float time, water temperature, as well as amount of color added to the gum, how thickly applied, all over or locally and other subtle variables that add up to the finished image. If it matches what was forefront in the printers pre-visualization, all is good. If not, well there are some remedies, just not best explained here.

I printed the palladium image to be just at the break of where the light quality illuminates the image, leaving the print brilliance intact. I am not a fan of overprinted, dark imagery, unless it is the mood to be set for the scene. The area front and center of this print image is the subject's skin tones, pretty much the brightest tonality in the print. Keeping those skin tones just below zone 7, into zone 6 but bright, was the focus. This image was captured on a bright day, with north light quality, being an bright, overcast day in Eugene, Oregon. Hence the brilliant skin tones. The developer used for this shot was Beutler 105; 1:10 ~ 8 minutes: ISO 125, set at ISO 64.

Perhaps I will be taken to task for the overall color of the subject's skin tones, as they seem just a slight bit yellowed. Perhaps it's my crappy color acuity. As I mentioned, there are means of reducing dried gum when it is absolutely necessary. Dicey work though.

Gum over Palladium Print
"The Photographer" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon 1984

New Prints ~ Soon

When one is old, things get done much slower, even when one continues to view the world through much younger eyes. So many interesting things visited upon me since my last post. Not that such is fare for this post. More to explain the lengthy absence.

As noted in the earlier post about cycles, I am beginning a new printing and writing cycle. What should be apparent from my posts that the prints I am making at any given time correspond to the book I am writing on how to do the process, the finished prints used as examples in the book. The last cycle was focused on the Kallitype print, most of which were printed already. What I was posting on mostly was the gum over palladium process, which I will continue, being this process has become the process I want to focus on for my artwork. The other printing, in the noble metals of silver and palladium, also continues, completing exhibition portfolios, as well as for the books being written about said processes.

The hallmark of the gum process is simply there are no real boundaries, thereby showing the printer's gesture, or the stylistic application of the process, like no other process. and what is more plainly seen is the artist's hand in shaping the final image. There is no standard beginning or ending, nor for that matter any standard consensus on general process procedure. The instructions from different authors writing on the subject vary in big ways. I've read a printer's instructions on the how to that pretty much stunned me. So, so different than how I would show how it is done. That will be the fifth and final photo book; The Alchemist's guide; to Gum Printing, which will also have a full section on gum over (silver, palladium, Pt/Pd, etc). It will also be likely the longest, most in depth of all the books, being there is so much potential and so many paths to take.

The next book, which I have officially begun will be "The Alchemist's Guide; to Printing in Palladium" with a full section on the 'double sodium' (Na2) platinum/palladium process. For my thinking if one is to write about a subject they should be proficient in that subject, with examples of what their work looks like. Simple as that. There will be prints posted as what my palladium prints looks like. Pretty much like the portfolio of palladium prints of Tombstone, Arizona, all in period dress and equipment in a period town.

I have posted images of each step in the gum process, layer by layer, to show how the colors begin to stack up, with the observed colors derived from subtractive color theory, same as what controls watercolors. Technically, a gum dichromate print is a photographic watercolor. The current prints being worked on are gum over palladium prints, very near completion, and I will be posting them here as they do get done. Stay tuned.