Dr Croubie
Allowing Ads
Hi all. So I had a great idea about some prints I wanted to make, enlarging onto canvas painted with emulsion and such.
I've read all the various threads about the peculiarities of canvas and such around here, but basically my first problem is whether to buy or to make.
Firstly: Liquid Light. I would love to just be able to buy something like this and be done with it.
Unfortunately a) it's $110 a bottle here, which is well over my threshold for "just to try it out", and I'm not about to buy anything from B+H in the next few months or I'd throw the $32 bottle in the cart.
b) nowhere, on any literature that I've seen on the bottle, on websites, not even on the Rockland page for it, does anyone explicitly state whether it's positive or negative. The Rockland FAQ page makes it sound like it's negative, but doesn't say it explicitly. The salesman at my local shop (who's used the stuff), said it was "positive, black is black and white is white". I've also talked to someone who said he made a pinhole on an upturned trailer-bed using it (at a trailer trade-show, apparently), and I can't imagine trailer people being impressed with a negative image stuck on steel as a marketing gimmick. So which is it, positive or negative?
Rollei RBM3 and Foma are available at macodirect, but it would be the only reason to order from them besides getting a FujiHunt Chrome 6X kit, ie they're not an option in the near future.
So the best option for me in the short term is home-made. But where to start? I've read a few recipes and almost all seem to contain chemicals that would probably be just as hard to obtain around here. Can anyone suggest a nice, easy, cheap recipe to start? It must be easy to mix in small quantities to start (ie, <100ml), and have easy to obtain ingredients, like a regular supermarket/pharmacy would carry (like eggs, permanganate, ammonia, iodine, aspirin, coffee, that sort of stuff. Hell, I'd sacrifice a pumpkin and a block of cheese if it'd make a nice emulsion).
And being Negative would definitely be a plus. I suppose I can always make an 'interpos' on film or paper and contact-print (going from there onto canvas would mask any blurriness anyway), but negative straight to canvas would be easiest. Speed and contrast aren't too important, neither is fine grain (like I said, canvas), and I can always paint whatever onto the canvas first to make it stick.
Suggestions?
I've read all the various threads about the peculiarities of canvas and such around here, but basically my first problem is whether to buy or to make.
Firstly: Liquid Light. I would love to just be able to buy something like this and be done with it.
Unfortunately a) it's $110 a bottle here, which is well over my threshold for "just to try it out", and I'm not about to buy anything from B+H in the next few months or I'd throw the $32 bottle in the cart.
b) nowhere, on any literature that I've seen on the bottle, on websites, not even on the Rockland page for it, does anyone explicitly state whether it's positive or negative. The Rockland FAQ page makes it sound like it's negative, but doesn't say it explicitly. The salesman at my local shop (who's used the stuff), said it was "positive, black is black and white is white". I've also talked to someone who said he made a pinhole on an upturned trailer-bed using it (at a trailer trade-show, apparently), and I can't imagine trailer people being impressed with a negative image stuck on steel as a marketing gimmick. So which is it, positive or negative?
Rollei RBM3 and Foma are available at macodirect, but it would be the only reason to order from them besides getting a FujiHunt Chrome 6X kit, ie they're not an option in the near future.
So the best option for me in the short term is home-made. But where to start? I've read a few recipes and almost all seem to contain chemicals that would probably be just as hard to obtain around here. Can anyone suggest a nice, easy, cheap recipe to start? It must be easy to mix in small quantities to start (ie, <100ml), and have easy to obtain ingredients, like a regular supermarket/pharmacy would carry (like eggs, permanganate, ammonia, iodine, aspirin, coffee, that sort of stuff. Hell, I'd sacrifice a pumpkin and a block of cheese if it'd make a nice emulsion).
And being Negative would definitely be a plus. I suppose I can always make an 'interpos' on film or paper and contact-print (going from there onto canvas would mask any blurriness anyway), but negative straight to canvas would be easiest. Speed and contrast aren't too important, neither is fine grain (like I said, canvas), and I can always paint whatever onto the canvas first to make it stick.
Suggestions?