Tapestry

  As usual at the weekend i had a bit of time to myself as Jess was working the morning shift (got to love that morning shift)!  What better way to spend this time than by dabbling in the ancient art of printy?!  I was in a very lith mood so i chose a negative from my latest roll of film and picked a paper.  As mentioned previously i recently won a bulk load of paper on EBay, mostly old Agfa Brovira and Portriga, but i also got a small pack of 8 x 10 Fotospeed Tapestry.  Is it lithable?  Internet says yes as does the good old Facebook lith printing group.  A bit of reading in Lord Rudman's lith and toning books revealed this to be a very special paper.  It liths very well and when toned in selenium a wide range of colours are available.  I got set up and gave it a try... and what a paper!  A lovely textured base with a nice matt finish, it liths fantastically and (as we will go on to see) is phenomenal in Selenium.  This is the print i finally got at the end of the process:

  As you can see it has a very different look to my usual lith prints.  It looks (to me at least) like a watercolour painting.  The colours you can get from this paper in selenium are fantastic, but instead of me talking about it - i have pictures!

  The first print i made of this messed up because i ended up putting finger prints all over the paper.  I decided to use this print to see how far the colour change in selenium would go.  What follows is a series of pictures (taken on my camera phone - sorry for the poor quality of some of them) from 0 to 23 minutes taken every 60 seconds to demonstrate the colour changes.

  Firstly here is the original, untoned print:

Untoned, wet print (note the golden yellow colour - when dry this turned a strong pinkish colour)

30s - note the shadows immediately turning a cool purplish colour

1:30 shadows cooling off further and working up to the lower midtones

2:00

3:00 midtones starting to be affected.  Hints of purple can be seen around the boats cabin

4:00 nice separation in the cabin area and increased separation in the sky

5:00

6:00 purple tones taking over the midtones now and moving up towards the highlights.  The sandy foreground taking on a cooler steely grey tone.

7:00

8:00

9:00 cloud separation reducing slightly as the cooler grey moves towards the purple areas

10:00

11:00

12:00

13:00

14:00 the cool grey now slowly turning into a soft creamy buff colour

15:00 as the creamy colour is taking over cloud separation has reduced significantly

16:00

17:00 shadows have a slight olivey brown tone

18:00

19:00

20:00

21:00

22:00

23:00 the cream has settled into a pale creamy grey colour across the print

  As you can see the print goes through many different colour changes before settling down at around 20 minutes or so.  My plan now was to give an overall toning in selenium to get things going then wash the print and, using a paintbrush, place selenium onto the areas i wanted extra toning on.  I started with the sky so as to increase separation between the purple and yellow areas, then i toned the foreground to change it from the cool grey to a sandy yellow colour.  Then i did a little extra on the cabin and prow of the boat to help it stand out from the frame a little more.  I think the final print looks much better with these multiple pastel colours than it would with just one overall tone.  But maybe that's just me.  One thing that i should mention if you should be lucky enough to come into ownership of this paper is that it dries a different colour.  For exmaple - here is my final print when wet:

And here it is dried out prior to toning:

  As you can see we've gone from yellow to pink.  Not quite what i fancied for this print but maybe one to kkero in mind for another subject.

  I'm sure this "toner painting" could be just as easily applied to any other paper.  You probably won't get as much of an extreme colour shifting but you may get something.  It's certainly something i'll be keeping in mind to try out in the future.

Sometimes a Joy, Sometimes a Trial

  I printed this at the weekend and it was a huge pain in the bum to do!

  I went through at least 20 sheets of paper trying to get the contrast and exposure right.  I had to keep swapping frames on my negative due to dust and hair that were in the emulsion - the whole printing process was just a pain.  Sometimes printing is a joy, sometimes a trial.

  Even the toning didn't go as planned.  I wanted to try something i read in the Tim Rudman toning book that i recently acquired.  You blue tone the print to completion, rinse then put it into selenium toner.  The selenium replaces the blue in the highlights which turn a putty colour.  If you rinse again and put the print back into blue toner then the blue will shift to a bright azure blue.  Guess what...it didn't work.  The selenium stripped all the blue back off the print (apart from a slight hint of purple in the shadows).  It seems only some blue toners work well for this.

  In the end i split toned in sepia and blue to get the above final image.  I really don't know if i like it or not.  But i guess each session in the darkroom is a lesson, sometimes a hard one.

A Reasonable Excuse For Being late?

  On Thursday Jess was working the morning shift, so what with her being lazy unable to drive it fell to me to drop her off.  A quick ten minute journey and i was back home with an hour and a half to kill before i needed to leave for work.  Plenty of time to fire off a quick lith print, yes? Yes?  Well, no not quite.

  Everything was all set up from a session a few days earlier butt he print had turned out to be a dud.  I was using old Agfa paper i had won on Ebay and it had developed very unevenly (which can sometimes be pleasing but in this case wasn't).  I decided to use my ample morning time to make another print, have some breakfast, have a wash and then head off to work satisfied in the knowledge that i have had a fruitful morning.  I started the print but ten minutes in noticed a thicker, darker band running across the centre of the print.  I ditched it and exposed another sheet.  Guess how long it took to develop... 20 minutes?  Half an hour?  No... 56 minutes!  Talk about slow!  I guess next time i use this paper ill try a stronger solution.  The problem now was that i had 5 minutes before i needed to be out the door.  Right, lock the shed, leave the print under the wash, brush my teeth, no time for a shower, deodorant on, clothes changed, hair and beard combed, shoes on, tap off, print drying, out the door, in the car, on the road!  In the end i arrived at work 2 minutes earlier but it was a push.  What do we learn?  Never try and lith on Brovira paper within the space of an hour!

  Anyway, here's the print.  I like the softer lith look this paper has given (compared to Slavich Unibrom).  I haven't experimented with toning it yet so not sure how it will react. I'm sure ill be doing some toning on it soon though so i'll let you know how it goes.

Fruits

  Sometimes Ebay is a wonderful place. I tend to go through phases, winning nothing for weeks then getting 5 things at once. A few days ago I took a gamble and won an auction for what was described as "10 opened 12" x 16" packets of Agfa paper, mostly Brovira" for £12. It was a gamble because I didnt know the storage condition of the paper and didnt know if there was 1 or ten sheets in each pack.  Well the paper arrived yesterday and I must say im chuffed. I got sent around 20 packs with some Portriga and Record Rapid thrown in too! There are a few unopened packets and some smaller packs of 9.5" x 12" and 7" x 9.5" too which is great. And to top it all off there is a pack of Fotospeed Tapestry 8" x 10" paper. A bit of research and asking around led me to the discovery that this is basically the legendary Kentmere Kentona paper under Fotospeed branding! Hopefully it will be in good condition and ill be able to get some decent prints out of it. I believe most if not all of these papers lith to varying degrees so it is going to be interesting to experiment.

  Anyway, boast over! It always pays to keep an eye on Ebay. But then again, dont - more for me!!!