Handprinted Gum Bichromate Print
I set myself a pretty difficult task here, with this handprinted gum bichromate print. Gum Printing isn’t for the faint-hearted at the best of time. The diptych below is made with 3 CMY colour seperation negatives for each side of the print ( 6 negatives in total ) and multiple layers of watercolour pigment and gum arabic. The biggest problem with a print like this is the registration, making sure each negative will sit in the right position each time I paint on a layer of pigment. The diptych has 4 layers at the moment and I’m contemplating adding another 2 layers, it’s like trying to finish a painting and knowing when to stop, that last brush stroke could take the image to a higher level or it could drop through the doors to hell. It has taken 4 days so far to get the print to this stage. I feel the print is close to what I wanted in the first place but just needs a tiny bit more detail.