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04/01/2004 Entry: "lighter than it looks"

Mixing gum arabic and watercolor paint is turning into a learning experience. That's supposed to be a positive way of saying I'm making mistakes but learning from them. I just have to get it through my head that the nice rich color I see in the mixing cup is going to be a lot lighter once I dilute it with potassium dichromate and spread it on paper. How much lighter is the big question. I'm trying for a deep bottle green shade and my attempt last night turned out more of an olive. Tonight, I'm testing a darker mix over the olive and hoping that the translucency of the emulsion will get close to where I want it to be.

I may end up remaking the enlarged negative with a little less contrast. The highlight areas are darn near bulletproof and another layer or two of gum in a very light tone will be needed if I want to avoid "paper white" from leaking through the image. I've got enough lith film to get me through the weekend in the darkroom and can cut down a few sheets of 16x20 to 8x10, though I'd hoped to save the big sheets for something worthy of their size. Another 100 sheets of 8x10 is on the way from Freestyle but not expected until next week. Not worried, though. If all else fails, it'll be a fine excuse to play with some of last Saturday's bodyscapes as lith prints.