Full color gum over palladium printmaking Mar 12-15
This workshop is an intensive 4 day workshop limited to two people. The reason this workshop is small is that we will be covering a lot of material, and this process involves a lot of steps. With only two people, we will be able to spend as much time as needed to ensure you leave with an understanding of the technique and confidence that you can recreate this in your own studio environment.
We have developed a full-color gum bichromate variant that is a hybrid between tricolor gum and gumover palladium printmaking. We feel that it blends the sharp and tonally smooth attributes of palladium printing with the rich color palette of gum bichromate.
This approach starts with a color image and separates it into its cyan, magenta, yellow and black components using tools we have developed in Photoshop. The black component is printed as a palladium negative and printed with standard palladium chemistry. This is the base layer for the image, and provides a detailed, smooth, and crisp framework for the final print. Subsequent layers of color are added using color gum bichromate techniques. The final print is a beautiful full color print with a unique pallet and a range of colors that can be chosen as the print is made over the course of the workshop.
What you will learn
- Photoshop techniques for working with color images.
- Negative-making techniques including QuadToneRIP
- Paper handling and registration techniques
- Pigment preparation
- Coating techniques for both palladium and gum bichromate
- Techniques for maximizing the richness of your finished print
- Color control through pigments, sensitizer, exposure, and negative preparation
- Paper sizing and hardening techniques
- Clearing and finishing techniques for gum prints
- For those able to drive to our location, we can calibrate a printer you bring using QuadToneRIP or other methods if you don’t have an Epson printer
- Nerdy stuff like how to use inexpensive colorimeters for quick calibration
What you need to bring
We will help you select 2-3 color images that will allow you to learn the full potential of this process. If you have a laptop computer, we can help you get it ready to make your own separation negatives when you return home. If you are driving here and have an inkjet printer, we can also help you get it calibrated for making the palladium and CMY negatives.
What you will take with you
- 6-9 finished full color prints and the negatives used to make them
- Custom and proprietary Photoshop Scripts and Actions that make the negative creation step almost as simple as a button push
- Custom ICC profiles for soft-proofing your images
- Gum coating brushes and rollers
- Full set of pigments and palladium chemistry so you can return home and immediately go to work in your own studio making more prints
Course outline
- Day 1 - Negative making, printer calibration (if needed) and paper preparation. We will make 6-9 palladium prints then prepare them for the next 3 days of the workshop.
- Days 2-4 - Adding color layers to the palladium base print. After each step, we will evaluate where we are and make decisions on adding subsequent layers. You will have 6-9 finished full color prints by mid-day on the final day of class.
Teaching approach
This technique involves a lot of steps and techniques. These are best learned and absorbed through repetition by working on a small number of images and making multiple prints from the same image. Muscle memory depends on repetition, as does brain memory!
By working with the same image using differing pigments and variable numbers of layers you will develop the ability to assess and correct the print as you go. The process is beautiful and is a marriage between full-on print nerd fastidiousness and seat-of-the-pants intuition. We will approach your images as beautiful prints waiting to be discovered through using the process.
Beanies and Berets rating
General workshop policies and information can be found here.
There will be space for up to 2 participants in this workshop.
Location
All of our workshops are given at our studio, located at:
96 Weaverville Rd. Suite 108
Asheville NC 28804