"Rose Bud #1" Gum Dichromate Print

 Best laid plans and all, then, Things Happen comes along and changes that. The Yellow Rose print remains nearly finished. Last minute decision to reprint a layer or two derives after clearing the print of the dichromate stain. Remove yellow from a print, with the subject primarily yellow, dins the depth of the color, making it pale, much less than can be done.

The hiatus from printing, at all, added to the time since last making a gum print, leaves prints not quite what had been expected. The nuances of color layering with the many variables affecting the print, all along the way, including the clearing when it is thought to be finished. Besides the Yellow Rose print, I have two other prints currently in some stage of printing. Not flowers. The two flower prints honed the instinctive touch, rendering ever finer prints. Like learning a language, printing comes under 'use it or lose it' of efficiency therein. One doesn't forget how to do it. The intuitive nature, inducing the finer nuances of the process 'get rusty'. Even after forty years of making gums.

This print consists of eighteen layers, using over twenty colors. That is because I was far too stingy with the mixtures, and likely just shy of print time needed. Too cautious. As always, the gum/color mixture opacity,  the print time, and the float time are the three variables controlling the print's primary characteristics. Keeping the negative constant. The printing is for the highlights, no different from any other printing process; for the vast majority of hand coated printing formats. Printing for the highlights. All the tones beneath the highlights fall into place, according to the contrast index and density range of the negative.

The opacity of the color influences how much color affect each layer will be upon existing colors, all stacked, one over the other as the printing proceeds. The color theory for gums is the same as watercolors; a subtractive color theory. The color layers adding up to a given color range and appeal when finished. The RGB gum color combination, especially when using color separations of the negative, is a soft pastel like colors, much like color film in the fifties. The CYMK printing format also realizes a very good representation of a color scene; this process has the black layer. The closer to full opacity of a color, when wiped over a clear material, into the light. I use a one ounce, 30cc medicine pill dispenser, as it is soft plastic and cleans well. It also allows the mixed gum with watercolor mixed in, to be wiped over the side of the vessel while looking into the light, showing how much light is coming through, and that, indicates how much the color layer is going to affect the colors below, as they are added up, divided by the light penetration.

The print time dictates how much of the gum will be soft enough to float off, during the floating on water. The more light upon the gum/colloid mixture, the more of it becomes permanent, impervious to any water application. Too little light and too much gum washes off during floating. These are of course the extremes, used as examples. There is a sort of hand shake between the print time ~ float time. One complements the other. What should dictates the print time is the negative, printing for the highlights. A simple test strip will show exactly this ratio. The sample that floats away just the right amount of gum that you wanted, happened within three minutes. On average.

The final part to play is the water temperature.  The warmer the water, the more area of the coated area will become soft, likely to float away. An overall removal of gum over the entire print area, which would affect about 50% of the tonal range, as the lower tones, zone 1, 2, and 3, representing black and dark shadow, will unlikely be affected by the floating. The upper tonal range can and will be affected by warm water. A finer control is using the float water at 65℉-68℉. This cools and firms up the gum at the lower tonal ranges, leaving zone 7 to be floated first, which should be times to below three minutes. I personally like that to happen between 1-2 minutes. These variables allow for a wide range of color achievement and color affect. The idea, in my mind, is doing so in a way the viewer can relate with, a sort of emotional attachment, because of the way the printer arrived at the finished print. That's the task.

This print is one which is not exactly as I had previsualized before I began. It did, arrive at an acceptable ending. After several weeks. For me, it is a bit heavy handed. Also printed on paper that tends to be a bit tricky to work with, from warping and twisting. I've settled on using only Hahnemuhle paper for the 8"x10" gum prints, and the Fabriano Artistico 140lb Hot Pressed watercolor paper for the 11"x14" gum prints. As I progress with printing the flowers, I may reprint this and destroy the old print.

Gum Dichromate Print

"Rose Bud" ~ Unique

"Yellow Rose" in Progress

 If things can happen, they will. Usually Always. This past year, now behind us, blessedly, has been crammed with demands for my time and attention. Pandemic, building projects on our house, wife's medical condition, and all the things tucked in between. Realizing a blog is to be written in a continual manner, such that the viewer has a reason to return. Shows you what kind of blogger I am. Plus I'm old, so there's that. I'm not much of an IT person; although, there was a \time.

That said, I have been working on new gum prints. I have shifted my printing attention to gums, for now. I have also begun printing flowers, beginning with images of roses I took a number of years ago. Those images have been patiently awaiting my getting to them. Gum printing takes a great deal of patience, and perseverance. That doesn't include the unexplainable things that take place, basically making the print junk. I've floated the print, hung it up to slough off the water, with a clean print finish. Then return the next morning to find a dot of dark color over a light, continuous tone area. Really! A drop, like a drip, but.... there was no chance for any such thing to take place. I have two junk prints of Capt Jack now. Both times it was the black run that made it so. Perfect while standing in front of it, then return to drips and spatters that simply cannot be explained. One would think they had pretty much seen most things gum printing ion forty years. One would be wrong about that.

"Yellow Rose" was shot in bright sunlight, and I want to keep the brilliance of the sunlight on the upper petals. The print, for all practical purposes, is finished. As originally planned. The thing buggering that up, currently, is an editorial one. The Pictorial Effect, altering the print image to arrive at "the strongest way of seeing", as Weston was noted as saying, often. The idea is to create a visual effect that elicits an emotional connection by the viewer. Dicey business, that. One person's interpretation is likely to another's annoyance. I used to worry about that. Later I put time pondering that relationship, ultimately coming to more fully realize that such a relationship can only function if the artist/printer stays true to their own vision, leaving the viewer to see what they are able.

The print will be finished, soon enough, if, I don't make a mistake in the interim. 

Gum Print in Progress

 Realizing a blog is supposed to have fresh material on a regular basis. I know this. Under the circumstances, printmaking has slowed down considerably. Home maintenance and improvements have captured my time and energy over the past weeks. I will confess, I did make an 11x14 gum over palladium print of Native Dancers, having completed the first one of the series, with it turning out quite nicely. I will also confess that I knew a few layers in that I wasn't liking it as I should have been. At that point it was what it was, and I wanted to see it to the end, just to see where it would go.

 I didn't like it. At all. It annoyed me that I had made it. That one is on a back burner, with some work on the negative image, tweaking it a bit before printing it again. And yeah, I printed that one over the course of five or six weeks. To make up for that, I jigged up a new image I captured recently. Adopting an elder cat, being elder and all, won't be round for the length of a kitties lifetime. Capt Jack. He staggers a bit and is unsteady on his feet at times, like he's coming off a long binge. But he affectionate, and loves to eat. He is a professional napper, and that is th eimage; him napping on the couch.

 This print is a gum print, on Fabriano Artistico 300 g/m, pre-shrunk but not sized. I'm relying on the paper's interior and exterior sizing to keep the image off the paper fibers. There is a bit of paper stain on the first run, which was a mix of light cyan, with a tiny spot of dark cyan for a deeper blue, over the entire print area. I'm going to begin the print using the standard CYMK printing format. I laid on the Golden Yellow layer this afternoon. Next up will be a quinacridone magenta, followed by a very sheer black layer, before beginning to color highlight areas on his fur.

I  find myself moving away from traditional realism,although, I admit the last print of "Morning Ritual" was pretty much dead on realistic replica of our front door view. I didn't mean it that way exactly, I follow the printing intuitively, theoretically, based upon subtractive color theory and color wheel principles. I've made it well known that I am near color blind to red/\green colors. Makes printing a bit dicey at times. Ya throw's the dice' and ya sees what ya gets. Not always, as standard printing theory keeps things in the lines. It is when the urge to experiment, trying out a new style or color application. One mistake and the print is junk.

I have to say I am enjoying printing in gum again, not gum over palladium. It's a difference experience. I have two 8x10 printing frames for gums so I am working on the 11x14 print of Capt Jack and began an 8x10 print of a pond at sunset, surrounded by trees. A subtly shaded scene and I want to get the light right, as well as the delicacy and tones of the light on the water. That's the tricky part. Stay tuned.

"Morning Ritual" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

I have been working on this print for some time now. So many thing getting in the way of that endeavor have slowed that process down considerably. This image was taken rather recently. The cat being our own Zoey, or Zoe Zoe as she was known by us. Her morning routine was to sit before the open front door, sitting peacefully, watching the world outside her own. The colors I used in the print image are mostly replicated from the actual colors of our living room, with exception to the floor tiles, which I lightened, using a pale green, instead of the darker brown of the real tiles. My use of color, and application therein, continues to change from when I began printing almost five years ago. That would be expected. This print has nine print layers, using thirteen color mixtures. There are four layers of variations of blue on the doors, and in the shadows. There are three different variations of red also applied to shadows. There should be colors in shadows, not just gray or black.

The trick for me is actually seeing the red spectrum colors I add, being I am all but color blind to red/green. And yet, I make colored gum prints. I'm like that. The most important element of any print, is the light. Reflecting how the light works on reflected objects and textures is, for me, what it's all about. The light, defines the image. The colors follow. I could have chosen any number of color combinations that would have worked. The colors in this print were chosen as I felt they represented the image best. Again, for me. The gum print remains the most versatile and personalized printing method of all printing methods. The possibilities with making a gum print are truly endless.

Gum over Palladium Print ~ Unique

"Morning Ritual" ~ 8"x10

 

"Old Wagon Wheel ~ Palladium toned Kallitype ~ Final Print

The shortening of the density range, or flattening the negative curve slightly, got the image where I had wanted, favoring the middle tones. The point of the image was the texture of the old wood showing up, more than the contrast between highlights and shadows. Palladium toning deepens blacks and deeper shadows, it open up the middle tones, lightening and separating tonal values, like the little flicks of black in dried wood, separating it from the highlights, adding contrast with the tonal separations. The toning also lightens and brightens highlights.

One issue I have come across from printing these larger prints, is the variations in print time caused by variations in the amount of solution on the print paper. I am finding a very different result between the test strips used to find print time, and the results of that print time on a coated full sheet. The ratios are slightly different, with the full print receiving a slight bit more solution for the area covered, than the test strips. Not that much though. This print image had four minutes less print time than the twelve minute test strip, yet, came out darker. Intuitively speaking, it would seem that more solution, deeper paper penetration, would require more print time to reach all the silver in the solution. This theory doesn't seem to be cooperating. That, then, demands some further testing, for that variation in outcomes.

This print was processed as the one before, with exception to print time, which was less. The first, more contrasty print image had a print time of ten minutes, as did the first copy of this image. This image had a print time of eight minutes, developed in sodium citrate then toned in Palladium for ten minutes. Palladium toner is a top down toner, working on highlights first, working down to the blacks over time. The citrate developed Kallitype is a warm toned image, the palladium toner cools the overall  image somewhat. If there is sufficient middle tones, the toning leaves them somewhat warm toned, although tonally responsive as the other areas.

Palladium toned Kallitype ~ Unique
"Old Wagon Wheel" ~ 11"x17"
Mesilla, New Mexico