Kodachrome Basin

[terri]

This started out as a laser print of an infrared shot of Kodachrome Basin, taken with Kodak HIE film. It's a beautiful place!

I printed it out on plain white copy paper and first made a gelatin "skin" like the one I described here, but this time, after I coated the image with a couple of layers of gel medium, I painted it. I recently bought a set of Golden Open acrylics, which are touted as being slower drying than regular acrylic paints, and I thought this was a good way to test them.

After I was done painting the image, I gave those paints overnight to dry. Then I brushed another 2 layers of gel medium over the acrylic paint. Once dried completely, I soaked the copy paper that was supporting all of this so I could gently rub off the paper and reveal nothing but the clear gel medium skin, with the painted image embedded within.

Here it is with most of the paper rubbed off (there's a little rip at the top that I fixed later with more gel medium):

It's transparent, so it's fun to decide how to mount it. Laid on top of a plain white background it looks like this:

I also laid it over a sheet of yellow cardstock to see what it did with the clear clouds, etc.

The yellow gives a slight tone to the clouds. I kinda like it.

I'm not certain how I'll mount it yet. I still need to trim that white border off. At the moment I'm wondering why I send myself down these rabbit holes.

All comments are welcomed and appreciated - thanks for looking!

 

[wobe]

Wow - I'm super impressed with the creativity involved here and thank you for explaining the process, a rabbit hole well worth exploring by the looks of it.
I like both results but my preference is the yellow backing, it looks like a very old photo that's been colourised, giving a nostalgic / historic look IMO.

 

[webestang64]

You are making all the rest of us look bad terri. Ha Ha Brilliant stuff as always.

 

[terri]

Wobe, Scotty - thank you both so much! I'm glad you like it.

No plans yet. It's finished, and can sit there and be a skin until I figure something out. I'll post it when it lands.

 

[cgw]

Dig this. Look is a ringer for very early color work. So what if it's a bit soft, the strong lines and contours save the day. Toying with trying this for some offbeat portraiture now that I have a nearby lab for 120 b&w. Thinking my plus-size Mamiya RB67 Pro S kit needs exercise after its pandemic mothball seclusion.

At any rate--BRAVO!

 

[terri]

Thank you!

The actual HIE negative is quite sharp. Once a regular laser (not a photo printer!) image is printed on plain white paper, the image is softened. Then it gets 6 brushed layers of the gel medium over it. Once that happens, you're looking at the shot through those layers...it really takes on this soft, almost gauzy appearance. The coloring helps define lines and shapes as you noted.

But it's fun! I'm hoping you give it a try. If you have any specific questions you think I could help with just holler!