So I ordered the bromoil bleach from Bostic and Sullivan, mixed it up and successfully bleached and tanned 3 sheets of Ilford Art. Fixed with TF4 fixer and washed for 45mins. Let it dry for about a week.
After gathering up my bromoil supplies of inks, brushes, rollers, and stuff, I cut one of the sheets in half so I could work a small area to get the inking process down. It looks easy online.
I soak the half sheet for several minutes in about 75* water. Then I remove the sheet and dry it both sides gently with paper towels. I ink the half sheet all over with the brush is all directions and have a nice muddy grey until I use the foam roller to redistribute the ink. Still a little muddy but I can now see the image faintly. I drop it back into the water and presto the image forms, but without much detail in the shadows. I gently rub it with a cotton ball in the water and it moves some of the ink out of the white areas and lightens the shadows. Wow this is really easy. So I set my test strip aside and go about soaking and inking the full sheet.
This is where things fall apart. The sheet does not perform the same way the little strip did. It inks up blackishly but then fades and gets muddy when rewetting. I work it in and out of the water several times but can never really get the image defined.
I switch to my third sheet soaking and getting ink ready. Though this time I am trying a sepia ink. Things start out ok but when I put the image in the water - I have a negative image. No Idea what caused that since I bleached and fixed at the same time as the other two. Except this is ilform MGFB image. But the stained matrix was a positive. So wondering if maybe the sepia ink is water based and not oil based. But can is same brand as the black and says oil on it. Gamblin Relief Ink - artists oils.
In summary, Ilford art probably not best choice or at least not a semi busy image on Art , Sepia reversing image, and I smell like mineral spirits. Other than that it was kind of fun.
After gathering up my bromoil supplies of inks, brushes, rollers, and stuff, I cut one of the sheets in half so I could work a small area to get the inking process down. It looks easy online.
I soak the half sheet for several minutes in about 75* water. Then I remove the sheet and dry it both sides gently with paper towels. I ink the half sheet all over with the brush is all directions and have a nice muddy grey until I use the foam roller to redistribute the ink. Still a little muddy but I can now see the image faintly. I drop it back into the water and presto the image forms, but without much detail in the shadows. I gently rub it with a cotton ball in the water and it moves some of the ink out of the white areas and lightens the shadows. Wow this is really easy. So I set my test strip aside and go about soaking and inking the full sheet.
This is where things fall apart. The sheet does not perform the same way the little strip did. It inks up blackishly but then fades and gets muddy when rewetting. I work it in and out of the water several times but can never really get the image defined.
I switch to my third sheet soaking and getting ink ready. Though this time I am trying a sepia ink. Things start out ok but when I put the image in the water - I have a negative image. No Idea what caused that since I bleached and fixed at the same time as the other two. Except this is ilform MGFB image. But the stained matrix was a positive. So wondering if maybe the sepia ink is water based and not oil based. But can is same brand as the black and says oil on it. Gamblin Relief Ink - artists oils.
In summary, Ilford art probably not best choice or at least not a semi busy image on Art , Sepia reversing image, and I smell like mineral spirits. Other than that it was kind of fun.
