Another round of Hand coloring....

Spent some time recently hand coloring a few prints that have been lingering for a while.
Quite a while, which actually became something of a problem.

First of all, if you haven't read a previous post of mine about hand coloring, 'all the basics', you really should take it in:

http://californiasilverwizard.blogspot.com/2009/06/hand-coloring-b-photo-prints-dying-art.html

One thing i have corrected/added to this post is:
USE A NON-HARDENING FIXER! AND MATTE SURFACE PAPER!
Yes, ALL CAPS is the equivalent of yelling. I am not quite yelling, but saying most strongly, 'use a non-hardening fixer', and matte paper. You'll be glad you did. :-) Also, don't wait too long to hand color a print, these three were printed a few years ago, and I'll bet that letting them be for a long time led to a certain amount of 'hardening' that made the coloring more difficult than usual. The blues, in particular, just did not sink into the paper well, at all.
Which led me to add an extra step to the image refinement process - scanning the hand-colored print, and correcting the blues w/ photoshop.

My methods/work-flow has changed over the years. Obviously, I start w/ a B&W darkroom print. I scan that at 100%, 300 ppi, so i've got it archived.

I print these out at letter size, on cheapo copy paper so i could do a sketch with colored pencils, to get a better idea of what i wanted to do. I guess i could spending hours more doing this in digital?... I'd much rather do ALL of it in about 30+ minutes with some cotton balls and Q-tips.Yes, i'd rather do it the old fashioned ('by hand') way. I usually do some basic colorization of large areas w/ photoshop, I know that's what I'm going to do w/ the handcoloring.

For these prints? I do some initial 'detail' coloring with a small brush and some watercolor inks.
One thing to do to make the watercolor inks go down right/one good hint on watercolors? add some 'photo-flo' or 'wetting agent' to the water you use, and wet down the areas you want to color, BEFORE you add the color - it'll go down much smoother, you'll be glad you did this, the brush strokes will show MUCH less.
If you are working w/ just 1/4 cup water? 1 drop will do.

Then i did an over hand-color w/ oils, first applying some linseed oil, letting it soak into the paper, then wiping off any excess.
It's hard to get the saturation i want in some areas in just one coat, so i let them dry for a couple of weeks - you really need to let them dry *completely* before you go back and add more, otherwise the oil will still be able to 'seep into the previous layer', and take it off, & you'll end up w/ a miserable mess.
Then i did another round of oil colors on them, in less than 2 hours.
The subtle things i can do by hand are much better than anything digital.
Even after thew second round of hand color, i just couldn't get what i wanted out of the blues, in particular, on two prints. So i scanned the prints, and dragged 'em into photoshop, and solved the problem easily.

So here's the process:

1 - Darkroom print
2 - Scan at 100%, 300ppi, to 'archive' the print.
3 - Do some basic digital colorization, then print that, letter size, on cheapo paper and do some color(planning), w/ colored pencils, as a guide.
4 - Apply what you have learned in step 3...
and do watercolors(for details) ...and then oil colors for all the rest.
5 - Maybe let the print sit around for a while, to dry...and then attack it again, w/ a bit mo' color.
6- A last step?...scan the hand-colored image, and give it another 'kick in the butt' with P'shop.

So here's the three images:

Mountain Mirage

From left to right, the B&W, the sketch, and the final hand coloring.

Voyage

Top left - the B&W, top right - the sketch, bottom left - the first round of hand coloring, bottom right - the final, w/ additional handcoloring, and some photoshop to saturate the blues extra.

Reservation Required

At left, the twice hand colored version with blues that just didn't sink into the paper, on the right, 'photoshop to the rescue' on the blues.

To see 'em all larger, a page on my site:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2013/Handcolor/index.html

..................................

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month?
Lots of things!

Not a week goes by without another story on the death of analog.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/07/11/robert_burley_s_disappearance_of_darkness_photography_at_the_end_of_the.html

But folks, if you've worked w/ both, you know it's just not that simple.
Here's an interesting discussion of film vs. digital:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm


'What lurks in the deep water off the most remote inhabited island in the world? This past month, a team of researchers trekked to Tristan da Cunha, an island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, to find out.'

( This is called a Cup Coral - Photo: © British Antartic Survey)
http://news.yahoo.com/expedition-isolated-island-yields-stunning-photos-133514638.html

http://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-500-million-old-creature-unearthed-002426314.html

http://news.yahoo.com/jets-molten-rock-push-earths-tectonic-plates-170346420.html

Next Month?... into the darkroom!

I re-opened the comments section! (whoop-dee-doo!)

I'm sure that won't shake your world much.
No surprise, here.
I had closed comments some months ago because virtually 100% of it had become spam, but while researching a previous post about hand-coloring (There will be another hand-coloring post, probably next month), i read a few comments and appreciated that there's actually some people out there reading who benefit from my posts. I am hoping that the hiatus will have discouraged the spammers enough to drop me from their lists. (But I sure as hell ain't holding my breath, ya know?)

So please feel free to speak up, i look forward to intelligent discussion and comments. I'll sift thru the spam if it reappears and bear w/ it.

Yes, even though i send a ton of time in front of this a monitor, i am still a diehard for analog, I still open up the darkroom every few months or so, and my recent round of hand-coloring confirms what I guess I already knew - i can get a whole lot more done in a few hours w/ oil colors, cotton balls and Q-tips than I can w/ Photoshop, in much more time.
Way, waaaay more.

And i really like the way analog is becoming appreciated for it's archival qualities - we are finding that, in the long run, digital is fragile and temporary.
So here's a pertinent link from the 'whatever catches my eye file':

When Artworks Crash: Restorers Face Digital Test
By MELENA RYZIK
Published: June 9, 2013 - NY Times

"Paintings fade; sculptures chip. Art restorers have long known how to repair those material flaws, so the experience of looking at a Vermeer or a Rodin remains basically unchanged over time. But when creativity is computerized, the art isn’t so easy to fix."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/design/whitney-saves-douglas-daviss-first-collaborative-sentence.html?hp&_r=0


Here's a personal experience along those lines, "digital is fragile and temporary".

A few years ago, my ol' Mac G3 died, over the course of just a few days. The 2 drives in it had been partitioned into 3 sections each, and one by one, each time i started up, another 1 died/failed to show up on the desktop.
At first, i freaked out... then realized that the most major portion of the work had been backed up, it was somewhere over 100 hours of scanning and image prep. When i figured out that the loss was only some digital pix, I breathed a big sigh of relief, and looked across the room to a suitcase that has all the B&W negs I've shot since i moved to Ca. 21 years ago. They are quite intact and will be safe and sound for many years to come.
Flood? I am on the 4th floor, if i am worrying about flood loss at that height? Film is the least of my worries.
Fire? My apt has sprinklers installed, and that suitcase is pretty darn sturdy, and it's wrapped (inside) in a big sheet of plastic.
Earthquake?... once again, if Ca. gets 'the big one' and it is close to San Rafael?....
saving film might be the least of my worries.
An EMP attack by Korea or Iran?... once again, saving film will be the least of my worries.
But will whatever technology exists 10 or 20 years from be able to deal w/ my negs? I suspect so.
Because there is just way too much 'old stuff' for the 'new stuff' to ignore/exclude/ make unuseable.

Here's another pertinent link from the 'whatever catches my eye file':

Vinyl records aren't dead:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/music/vinyl-records-are-making-a-comeback.html

I'd *love* to know what my first release copy of Dave mason's first solo album (pressed on 'marbled' vinyl) would  sell for today. It would probably make me faint.
I will be content to still be able to hear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnsxq2YKyUo
( a live performance 1977)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvf5rVzmHuc
studio version

A preview of the hand-color post to come:




As a last word, try and find something good, some glimmer of hope in this crazy-ass world.
I did this montage (below) a few years ago, and that's what it's about - find something good, some glimmer of hope in this crazy-ass world.

I titled it the 'The pass', as in the old line in western movies 'let's cut em off at the pass!'... but you?... should 'pass' on thru. As in the lyric from a Doors song (sad to hear Ray M. died recently) - "Break on thru to the other side".
Do that. :-)