gum bichromate

Gum bichromate is usually the process that draws someone into alt— the brushstrokes, the colors, the ability to paint a full-color photograph. It’s also one of the more difficult processes to master because, of course, it can be picky. Thankfully, gum is also one of the more forgiving processes. Mess up a layer? Brush it off while it’s still wet. The sky went way too magenta? Brush of that magenta layer in the sky and keep working. There’s a wonderful interplay of back & forth between colors— working from too red to too blue to too green until you get a print bang-on and you feel like you can make anything (usually the next print is a dumpster fire because gum likes to keep its printers humble).

A standard gum print is compromised of three layers: cyan, yellow, and magenta. You can do single-layer prints with lamp black, you can go to town and make a 15-layer print, you can selectively brush off different parts of each layer— whatever you want, you can make it. It’s one of my favorite processes because you never really know how a print will turn out until you’re there.