"Capt Jack" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

 At long last, Capt Jack is finally a finished print. Fourth iteration of printing. Because of the coating & layering approach I had to take to arrive at this finished version, A problem I had to work with was colors running while still wet, hung up. Normally, this isn't a major problem, with a bit of vigilance; assuming one 'sees' said color(s) in the first place. As noted before, I am 95% color blind to red/green. I basically see those colors as they come out of the tube, and even in mixture. It's when a shear layer of red, migrates over into another color while drying down, that, I tend to miss. When a print takes two or more weeks to produce in the first place, tossing a print, near completion, is painful. Doing it three times tests one's commitment to printing.

There is another variable at play  with this print, being a paper and sizing trials, variations upon the theme. This print was made on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolor paper; 140lb. I began printing gums using Arches hot press watercolor paper; sizing with Know gelatin @ 2.5%, paper soaked twice. This print was made on the Fabriano paper using one clear layer of gum/dichromate, printed 5-minutes, then cleared. This version of sizing actually works fairly well, although there is more 'paper bleed' than would be the case with the two dips in gelatin sizing. Along with this test was another one using one layer of Knox gelatin; @ 2% solution. This version is very much like the single printed clear gum layer. 

There are several more versions of sizing papers, as well as many potential papers to use for gum printing. When I make Kallitype or Palladium prints, I use Revere Platinum paper, as it just works so well and gives such a beautiful, rich finish to the metal based prints. One thing I found it not to be all that suited for is repeated dipping in water after repeated coating and printing exposures. The paper tends to warp and curl more than the Fabriano. I will say here that I have yet to try the double soaking with gelatin sizing at 2.5%. I used the single coating. A second aspect of the Revere paper, is the smooth surface of the printing side. Very desirable for palladium prints, workable for gums. The Fabriano paper has more 'tooth'. Not so much 'roughness', like cold pressed, but a 'woven' feel to it, and the gum layers work very well in concert with that surface tooth. The Fabriano paper also doesn't curl much, with very little assistance, saying almost flat.

I use the Fabriano paper for the 11"x14" gum prints, buying the sheets in the full size; 22"x30", then cut them in half and trim, to fit the paper mask that hosts the negative, same size as the print paper; 15"x19 1/2". I simply use the Strathmore Sketch Pad paper; 16"x20". I made mask of the first sheet, then mark through the window the corner points before tearing off the marked sheet and cutting out the  window for the negative. These two sheets; mask & printing paper, are to be the same size, then get "Married" before being registered and set to the pins taped to the printing frame I made for gum printing. Not to make a pitch here, but the details of the connection between the gum and paper, and the controls for that are my fifth book, on gum printing.

The basic relationship between paper sizing and gum application, has to do with the amount of color that can be mixed in the gum, second only to the viscosity of the gum. Pre-mixed commercial is sold at 14 balm, which equates roughly to a 37% mixture. For me, that's a bit thin. I mix my own gum, at 50% solution. That allows for more color that can be added to the gum to begin with, and the gum/color mixture is then mated to the paper/sizing, with the intended results of printing the least amount of gum color needed to represent each color layer with intended fidelity. Less sizing, more 'open paper', the more the color will soak into the paper, sort of 'fading' upon dry down. Too much sizing, as well as too much gum color, finds the gum & color building up onto the surface, usually ending up cracking, and or flaking if way too much is used.

This version of the print is a softer, dreamier sort of image. I got the dreamier part from my wife's take on it. She's my color guru for gum printing. She's a watercolor painter and sees the full color spectrum. At first I was not fully on board with the softer, dreamier part. I have worked for years to make the images on the surface and "strong', printed bold. And that, is one of the hallmarks of gum printing. The ability for almost endless variations upon the theme; making the image your own. The printer's "hand". This one is mine.

Gum Dichromate Print  ~ Unique                                                                                                                  "Capt Jack" ~ `11"x14"

"The Blue Goose" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

This past hiatus from posting derives from a list of challenges I've been entertaining. The other half of my life, outside of printing, and writing. In that recent period I have been experimenting with a different printing paper for gums, as well as the sizing. Not all of that presented good things. Within that experimentation were three print iterations of Capt Jack. None to my liking. I am now four  color layers into the fourth print of Capt Jack. I've narrowed the useful portions of the process and finding the current relationship workable.

When I began printing gums forty years ago, I had far fewer choices for printing papers. I settled on Arches hot press watercolor paper, sizing it with two soakings of a 2 1/2% Knox gelatin solution. That paper worked well, then. I have come to find papers more to my liking more recently. One of those papers is Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolor paper. I like the feel of the surface, and the tooth of the paper. This paper is also sized in the interior and exterior, however, it really needs further sizing for finer gum work.

There is a balance between the paper sizing, gum viscosity and amount of color added, that, when in balance keeps the printed image on the surface of the paper sufficiently for good textural detail. If the sizing isn't sufficient, the gum too thin or the added color too much for the first two elements, the image falls into the paper, disappearing as it dries. Too much sizing with thick gum and a lot of color creates an image that more resembles garish acrylic painting work. There is no 'right' amount, or balance. There is but the visual effect the printer finds to their liking. As I have noted before, I mix my gum at 50% solution for printing. So, for me, a single sizing can work, but will require just a little heavier watercolor mixture  works best for each color layer.

The recent tests reveal that two soakings of gelatin sizing at 2% solution works very much the same as a single clear gum coating, printed then cleared. Each of those sizing treatments leave a slightly different visual feel to the image, how much textural detail is shown, how much paper texture is seen. Getting the color mixtures right makes all the difference in the final  print. It not only has everything to do with how many color layers are needed for a finished print, but also how much textural detail, and smoothness of the coated image is left. There are no 'boundaries' in gum printing. Just personal tastes.

Because of the paper/sizing arrangement of this print, it required ten printed color layers to arrive at a suitable interpretation of the image as I planned. I am no longer interested in replicating a realistic interpretation of the scene. What I want out of the image is my own interpretation of how it is to look. That, is the point of the gum printer. Showing the printer's 'hand', or 'gesture'. I haven't seen any other gum printer, few as there are, to print like me, or each other. Each printer is unique.

Gum Dichromate Print                                                                                                                                 "The Glue Goose" ~ 8"x10"                                                                                                                          Florence, Oregon

 

"Yellow Rose" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

The "Yellow Rose" print is finally finished. That had to wait until the Rose Bu\d print was finished, to use the printing board. The digital copy of the print falls short of the much richer yellow color of the petals that are lit up by the sun.  The brilliance of the sun on the petals that was the focus of the printing. There is also just a bit of visual penetration to the background, like a zone 2 shadow, where there is no texture or detail but it  an be seen that something is there. In the  digital copy the background just went dark. A failure in copying, not the print.

 This is the second flower print of what will become a portfolio of such prints. More roses, both red and yellow to print  for the rest of my life, as well as desert flowers, singly, close up, as this one, and some of a field of flowers.  I will be treating the different flower prints in different ways, some, holding to the original colors and some will be shaped in ways to enhance the print image. Two prints in process is The Blue Goose, an historic train that was still active when the image was taken, in 1982, and Capt Jack, the first print I have begun altering, to be something that would never be seen in reality. Stayed tune for that one.

 "Gum Dichromate Print ~ Unique                                                                                                                  8"x10" ~ Fabriano Artistica 140lb hot press watercolor paper

"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.