WORKSHOPS
WHO
Groups of eight people with any level of experience. All are welcome.
WHAT
Non-toxic printing with PrintMaker’s Friend. See the workshops page for a complete outline of what we’ll study.
WHERE
In the Wet Print Studio in beautiful Valencia, Spain. See the studio
WHEN
Most likely in the fall of 2025. I haven’t set dates yet. Send me an email to be placed on the mailing list.
WHY
Painting, photography, science, and expression all come together to make gum printing a unique and wonderful process. With PMF, we can practice gum printing without worrying about carcinogenic dichromate.
BASIC OUTLINE FOR THE WORKSHOP
COLOR WORKSHOP WEEK 1
| Monday | Tuesday Calibration Day | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
8:30 | Overview of workshop | Adjusting the tonal response of the process · Variables to work with · Step wedge vs. chart vs. print · Banding, plateaus, too dark or light, staining, low dMax, contrast | Why no development until the end? · Structure · Staining · Registration · Faster | Make a split-tone print. If you brought your own silver or collodion negative, we’ll print it at this time. | PrintMaker’s Friend over cyanotype |
9:30 | Make a print · Registration · Negatives · Coat · Expose · Repeat · Develop We’ll have about an hour of downtime while the emulsion is drying between layers to look at some theory. · Registration methods. · Where to buy supplies | Reticulation | |||
10:30 | How a clear coat works. When and why it doesn’t make sense with brush coating and continuous tone negatives. | ||||
11:30 | Linearization curves without a spectrophotometer | Emulsion Rheology | Halftone Negatives | Color calibration overview | |
12:30 | Exp times for split-toning | Exposure unit · Intensity · Wavelength · Point
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13:30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
14:30 | Designing a set of inks · How our eyes work · Number of layers · dMax · Staining limit · Retaining highlights | How to adjust the process to other negatives | Designing a split tone · Sensitivity to neutral tone · Expression · One negative vs. toning negatives I gave a two-week-long private workshop on toning last year and we barely scratched the surface of what’s possible. This is going to be a very rough overview of toning. | Make negatives. | Prepare negatives. Each person will prepare their own imagesetter negatives. Since there are 8 people, this will go faster if a couple of people bring laptops. |
15:30 | For those who want to bring their own silver gelatin or collodion negatives. We’ll use this time to calibrate the process to those negatives. | Print cyanotypes | |||
16:30 | |||||
17:30 | Match exposure time to density of negative | Talk about gum over other processes like platinum | |||
18:00 | End day 1 | End day 2 | End day 3 | End day 4 | End day 5 |
COLOR WORKSHOP WEEK 2
| Monday “Bring your brain to work day” | Tuesday Calibration Day | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
8:30 |
| Printing- I’ve marked the next three days as printing. During this time, we’ll have about 10 hours of downtime while the emulsion dries between coats, and the paper dries between developments. We’ll use this time to clear up calibration concerns, loo at color theory, and cover more in-depth the various BW toning options. | Printing
| Printing | Calibration and theory overflow. If by some miracle we covered everything, we’ll use this time to look at- · Pigments · Paper · Interpreting prints/texture/brush strokes/varnishing
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9:30 | Choosing a density | ||||
10:30 | Linearization | ||||
11:30 | Tonal separations | ||||
12:30 | |||||
13:30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
14:30 | Prepare paper. Sizing, | Printing | Printing | Printing | Questions |
15:30 | Recipes, files, orders. | ||||
16:30 | Package prints | ||||
17:30 | We’ll end early so I can go pick up the negatives. | ||||
18:00 |
| End day 7 | End day 8- Let me know if you want anything from the store so I can prepare your order for Friday. | End day 9 | End of workshop |
Contact me to be placed on the waiting list for 2025
