Colouring black and white papers

Joined
Jan 28, 2023
Messages
1,207
Location
Wilammette Valley, Oregon
Format
35mm RF
Although I haven’t hand colored a print in years, I have done it quite a bit. I started out using the Marshalls Oil paints but found the results less than satisfying: it always seemed that the colors sat on top of the image and never really integrated with the photograph.
Years later, when I worked as Deborah Samuel’s darkroom technician, I learned from her how to color using watercolors. It was a painstaking process which required that you layer on very dilute color over and over, gradually building up saturation to get a believable result. The print has to be kept slightly damp as you work, and to make the colors integrate best, we would do a very light sepia toning of the print to prep it for coloring. The colors always seemed to integrate better into the image if applied to a warm tinted print. Perhaps the Marshalls colors would have worked better on a sepia tinted print.
I hope that helps.
 

Carnie Bob

Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2023
Messages
381
Location
Toronto , Ont Canada
Format
4x5 Format
What you see here is a tri colour gum over palladium on Hahnemuhle Platinum rag, not silver but for I know our methods would work with matt or Art 300. We use the same Calvin Grier transparent pigments mixed with a bit of gum to hand brush work on the print. The image on the left is with no retouching and the image on the right is with retouching. I plan to build my skills over the winter to do this with all my solarization work, right now I have Anam (right hand maiden ) do the work with little input from me as to where to add the pigment.
 
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