Gum Bichromate

Hello everyone! I'm back in Richmond at school with all new classes so keep a look out for new work. But before that...here are a few prints I worked on over winter break. They are Gum Bichromate prints. Perhaps the style looks familiar if you have ever...stepped foot in my house, know my dad, live in Chapel Hill, or are one of the very few who knows about the process.

It is a process created in the mid-19th century of painting a combination of powdered earth pigments, gum arabic, and light sensitive potassium dichromate on gelatin-coated paper. After the mixture dries, the negative is exposed, laying on top of the pigment. Then, the negative is removed and the paper is allowed to soak in water while the image develops.

Over a couple weeks I worked on 4 prints (but 2 images). Each time I went into the darkroom I spent about 2 hours with additional time in between printing sessions for the prints to completely dry. I ended up with these four prints. Each has 8 different layers of pigment. Some worked better than others. The image of the chairs took much better to the process than the one of the buddha statue.

I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to jump right into the process with all of the materials (and assistance) I needed available. Thanks Big D! I had so much fun getting to know the process.

I will show both the image on the paper and the image cropped (as it would appear matted or framed).

To read more about the process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gum_bichromate

To see prints by the gum bichromate master himself, check out my dad's website at: http://www.woodsedge.net/

or his page at The Frank gallery (of which he is a founding member):
http://www.frankisart.com/artists/dehmer_a.html

DO IT!

PS- If you look a couple posts back, you'll find the photographs I used. I recently took them on a Diana F+ toy camera.