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Smokin'!!!:toocool:Happy new year my friends ! May the Force be with you
Emma
Those look wonderful!
How does this process work?
wow!!A Ziatype is a printing out process.. which means it develops as it is exposed.
you take equal parts Cesium Palladium solution & Ferric ammonium oxalate solution and mix them. At this point the mixture is sensitive to UV light (normal visible spectrum won't expose it, so this can all be done under a low wattage yellow bug light.. which is bright enough to read under)
You take the solution, and brush it onto watercolor paper, and wait for it to mostly dry. Humidity is very important, and I usually have the room up to about 70% humidity when coating). when the paper is dry to the touch (still damp, but you won't wet your finger if touching it), you repeat for a 2nd coating.
The hard part is figuring out when to expose the paper. it needs to be 'damp' for the development to take place when exposed, but if too damp, it will transfer the solution to the negative, and ruin it.
Before all of this, I've taken an image and created a digital negative. I use an HP Z3200 to print my negatives. they have a special profile for Alt-process negative creation on transparency material. You end up with a dark green negative after printing. There's a lot of calibration that goes on when you start.. and if you keep your variables consistent during the processing/printing... you don't need to do this often.
Once the coated watercolor paper is dry enough, i put it on a vacuum easel an place the negative on top. I start the vacuum which brings the negative into very close contact with the paper. I then start the UV light (about 8 minutes) (Nuarc 26-1ks).
When finished, I have an exposed image, but with unexposed palladium still in it.. so I run it through a series of clearing baths to remove the chemistry.
easy.