Re: Cyanotype toning and lead acetate.

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Robert W. Schramm wrote:
> There is another process for toning cyanotypes that gives purple, brown
> and blue tones. It was discovered by Judy and I have toned a lot of
> prints with it.
>
> Maybe if Judy is in a good mood she will post the process on the list. In my
> cookbook I refer to it as Seigel Toning. I got the process from Judy. I have
> never seen it published anywhere.

Judy is out of her tree at this point but nothing to do with lead
acetate... I toned with lead acetate for a while, but ye gods -- you COVER
THE TRAY when you're not actually going into or out of it, for ANY
chemistry; You DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS IN ANY CHEMISTRY, but wear gloves,
and keep them clean; when you're weighing, ye gods, you don't dump the
stuff out of the bottle so it puffs up, you spoon it out, and you have a
sheet of newspaper under the scale so you fold it up and dispose of any
loose grains promptly -- etc. etc. etc. And I have no reason to think I'm
any more declined now than I would be minus lead acetate. (Of course my
trousseau wine glasses were lead crystal, and sure made a pretty ping when
you rapped them, but I'm not a wine drinker, & anyway they're now all
broken [sob!], so I'm safe.)

But I would assume any chemical could be as virulent as lead acetate,
probably a lot we don't have the info on yet, like milk chocolate and
jalepeno peppers. As for the MSDS, PLEASE!!! I have this book called
OVEREXPOSURE, which strikes me as typical. If you read the data on for
instance gum arabic, you'd put the coroner's phone # on yr speed dial.

Which is to say, they're all of them pulling out all stops all the time,
because they're in the business. Also, need I say (I've said it before)
it's all geared to industrial doses, lots of exposure for a 40 hour week.
A gram or two for a few hours in water is like mother love in comparison
(or some mother love, there's mother love worse than lead acetate, I dare
say).

What I did with lead acetate, BTW, was two things -- I tried the blue
toning that Bob assured me would get wonderful blues, and didn't get them.
Either something in my process or my water, or my eyesight. But as I
recall, Bob was using regular old-time formulas, which are in "the canon"
for anyone to try.

I'm trying to think of a blue toner I did that hasn't been seen or
published, but don't --- what comes to mind a propos lead acetate however
is that I did the plating out toner (in P-F #3 the SS series, essentially
Halochrome), with a lead acetate instead of copper sulfate bleach (this
from memory, it was 20 years ago, but if anyone's interested, when my life
resumes, I can maybe look it up). The effects were dazzling, goldish
plating out that kind of got 3-D if you'd scratched into the emulsion, and
the mackie lines sometimes reddish.)

I stopped it after a few dozen tests & prints because -- NOT the poison,
tho all the ongoing hoo hah wasn't helpful -- but because I'd been reading
that lead toners weren't stable, and having had some unwelcome changes
with other toners after the SS redevelopment, I let it drop. I happened
to open the folder with those prints just last month, however, and they
seemed unchanged, whatever that means. But of course I'm not printing on
SG any more. Also, that was the old Brovira, and other paper maybe didn't
do it. I'd also guess that SG paper if any, is now so precious it would
be difficult to experiment with it.

However, I meanwhile had some thoughts about tannic acid on cyano toner
I'll put in a fresh e-mail

Judy
Received on Thu Apr 20 22:51:37 2006