All ye who enter here, abandon all hope

I mean, really, that title feels appropriate because I’ve started work on something that’s just extremely unlikely to work out well. Let’s face it – carbon transfer is challenging enough to begin with. Even I know that. Let alone doing it in color. Yes, you read that right: I must’ve gone mad. Carbon transfer, and not just black, but also C…M…and Y. It’s going to be either a long journey, or a frustrating one, or both. Let’s see.

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Tissue making – curl up and dye

Ok, sorry – inappropriate title again. Evidently, no dye is involved in carbon transfer tissue making. As far as I know, any attempt to add dye to tissue will cause staining of porous final supports, so it’s really pigments all the way. But the reference to the Blues Brothers movie was just too good to pass. Besides, the ‘curl up’ part is pretty accurate! Anyway, here’s part two of the blog I did earlier on making carbon transfer glop. With all the bubbles gone, it’s time to turn glop into tissue!

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Making glop – and some words on sugar, glycerin and ink

Glop, gloop, pigmented gelatin – whatever you name it: it’s that pretty awesome looking slithery stuff that forms the basis of a carbon transfer image. Looking at liquid, bubble-free glop at the right angle is a bit like staring into a black hole. It surprises me Anish Kapoor never caught onto it, really. Anyway, today is glop-making day again as I’m running out of 8×10 tissue. I took some pics and will (probably) follow up next time with tissue-making.

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Making black, making white

There are many things to like about carbon transfer printing (and at least as many to dislike about it…). One of them is that essentially, you’re making the black and the white separately and then marry them when making the actual transfer. The black is the tissue, the white is the final support. Combined, they make for a continuous tone image. Pretty neat if you consider that they start out as pure black and pure white!

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