Last night was a blast as we hosted our latest After Hours Member Mixer in our new digs at the Art Intersection Photo Arts Lab! It was such a joy to catch up with our community and chat about all the exciting changes happening at Art Intersection.
Alan gave us a sneak peek into the year ahead with a roadmap jam-packed with awesome events planned for both the Photo Arts Lab and Gallery 4.
And let’s not forget the highlight of the evening—Juan Garcia’s incredible digital prints, crafted from a 4×5 negative under Alan’s guidance, from scan to print. It was a taste of the creative magic we’re cooking up for future gatherings with artists in our Art Intersection community!
We’re excited to dive into this new chapter at Art Intersection. Keep an eye out for more information by signing up for our email newsletter here!
This past Saturday, October 31 we were honored to have California artist Ryuijie teach the art of platinum/palladium printing to 11 members of the Art Intersection community. This 19th century process has long been revered for its tonal depth and archival qualities. Ryuijie demonstrated two different printing styles – the ABC and Na2 methods, both of which he uses in his artistic practice. Participants mixed their chemistry, hand-coated fine art paper, let it dry, and exposed their paper using a digital negative and UV light. It was inspiring to see the workshop participants quickly pick up a new technique which might have a lasting place in their artistic skill set! With a little experimenting and practice, the students used this luminous process to make some beautiful work.
Mario Sanchez holds up his freshly hand-coated paper
Jeff Welker coats his paper
Participants process their prints in developing and clearing baths
BK Skaggs assesses the exposure of his print
Finished platinum/palladium prints drying
Participants discuss their results at the end of the day
This past weekend of September 12 and 13 Art Intersection was bursting with color! Tri-color gum bichromate, that is. We had the great pleasure of hosting a two-day, immersive workshop in the process taught by Diana Bloomfield, a master gum printer especially known for her tri-color technique. Ten participants learned about this fascinating 19th-century process that includes mixing together gum arabic, potassium dichromate, and watercolor pigments, then hand-coating that mixture on paper, exposing their paper under a digital negative in UV light, and washing out the print in water to “develop” it.
Diana Bloomfield explains her technique for mixing the gum emulsion on Day 1.
Workshop participants look on as Diana coats a sheet of paper with the light-sensitive gum mixture she’s made.
Any color watercolor pigment can be used, but this tri-color process involves making three separate coating and exposure runs with cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments individually to get a full-color final print.
Armed with coffee, the participants listen as Diana explains the basics of color balancing for a natural-looking print at the start of Day 2. If a print does not initially look correct, more passes with various colors can be made to balance it.
In order for the image to remain sharp, the negative being used must be placed in exactly the same spot for every layer. Michael Puff carefully registers his negative to exactly match the previous layers he’s created.
Chris Palmer rinses out his print after exposing it to UV light. During the exposure, the areas of the gum emulsion blocked by the dark areas of the negative wash away in the water, creating highlights. Those underneath the light areas of the negative solidify and adhere to the paper, creating shadows.
BK Skaggs, Shari Trennert, and Maylee Noah rinse their prints while others hang to dry. These prints show the first pass with the cyan layer.
At the end of the workshop, all the participants show the results of their hard work by putting their favorite prints up on the critique board. Diana gives the class constructive feedback on their printing.
Finished prints by Maylee Noah showing one-color, two-color, and tri-color prints.
