Presenting alt process / hand coated prints - what's your way?

[andreios]

Hello,

I am not sure which would be the appropriate forum for this, but I have one "question" that I thinking about a lot in recent months and that I would like opinions and experiences from other printers.

How do you present your prints made with historic / alternative printing techniques - platinotypes, kallitypes, Van Dykes etc.where you hand coat your emulsion?

Do you mask the edges before coating so that the image has "clean" borders?
Do you mask the edges when exposing (using rubylith or similar)?
Do you cover the black/dark edges on the print when matting? (e.g. cutting the window in the mat-borad so that only the image area is visible?)
Do you cut the window in the mat-board so that the borders are visible and presented as a part of the image?

Thanks!

 

[doughowk]

I use a window mat slightly larger than the negative when coating. It merely constrains my brush strokes. Near end of coating step, I remove the window mat and touch up the edges.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I often mask when coating with the Scotch "blue" painters tape for delicate surfaces to give me nice clean borders, but sometimes I let the brush strokes fly - depends on the image. If I have not masked when coating, I'll mat to show the brush strokes, but this is uncommon as it requires a much larger mat to accommodate the larger opening and still maintain reasonable window borders. I will cut my opening in the mat to just slightly larger than the negative so that I show the full frame plus a small border around it.

 

[jeffreyg]

Andrelos
Depending on the image and perhaps my mood sometimes any of the techniques on your list (pt/pd).

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[doughowk]

As to the 2nd part of your question (presentation), depends. If I'm using COT 320 or similar watercolor paper, I window mat just beyond the edges of brush strokes. For a delicate paper such as Goyu Kozo, I float mount showing the entire paper.

 

[andreios]

Thank you for your answers so far.. It seems that it all depends on image content... And artist's intent..

doughowk, the idea of using a mat-board as a mask when coating seems interesting, will try it next time!