Brush problem

[Dan Dozer]

I'm still real new at Bromoil. Learning a lot and having fun - want to try more. Am having a problem with the hairs from the brushes breaking off and sticking to the image. When ever I try to get them off, it takes some of the ink off as well.

Note I live in the desert southwest where it's pretty dry. Maybe my matrix is drying too much due to the dry air (low humidity). Maybe my ink is too stiff - I don't know.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dan Dozer]

OK- I tried thinning the ink a little and it helped. However, today I experienced a learning experience and I need someone much more experienced than I am to tell me I'm going in the right direction.

Started out my session with my soak water at about 78 Degrees (that's the temp of the ground water here this time of year). Things went fine for a little over an hour then I started having problems that seemed like the paper was drying out too much and the ink could no longer be worked. Eventually, it got to the point where the ink was sticking to the matrix and could not be worked at all. At that time, the air temp in my darkroom was 80 degrees, the humidity was 30%, and the soak water temp was 81 degrees. To me, that means that the temps of everything was getting to high.

Another thing - if I re-soak the print for re-working, the ink in the highlight areas starts to come off when I try to pat dry the print. Is this supposed to happen and if so, how do you deal with it?

Does this sound right?

 

[Jerevan]

Just a little note at coffee time: When you do re-soak, you have to re-ink because some of the ink always comes off. So as you say, re-soak the bromoil, lightly dab off excess water and re-ink. The variables here are three: the swelling of the gelatine, the hardness of the ink and your brush action. The swelling is a function of the soaking temperature as you've already seen, so if you soak it in higher temperature, you may need softer ink. It sounds right as far as I can tell. Go on, you're on your way.