MorseBlog

After my previous post I saw the chance to try something I had read about when researching MG ART 300 paper from Ilford. I had found one person in a discussion whose wife found the paper ideal for hand coloring with colored pencils. The paper has a strong texture or tooth. Previously when I have tried hand coloring with pencils I had found normal photographic paper resistant to taking much color. Gloss paper... forget it. Matte or Pearl is a bit better but still difficult. I was left to using oil-based tints which worked with some success. They are messy and I struggle with getting color into small areas using a cotton swab/bud. Here is an example I did a few years ago . Earlier hand colored print in oils. (link to blog post above) This time I took the lighter of the two prints I made on Ilford MG ART 300 paper reference in the earlier blog post . I used cheap colored pencils I got from a stationary store. The paper delivered on the ability to get the color onto the paper consi...

Its been some time since I have done some FB prints in 12x16" size. I like bigger print sizes but with FB there is always the drying and flattening problem. I wrote an article about a solution for 8x10" prints which I use regularly and like the results. I scaled this up not too long ago for 12x16" and my initial trial resulted in some damage to the paper in the corner. This mimicked a comment made by a reader when he had tried to scale up a similar solution. Though the damage and distortion was limited it did discourage me. I let the problem roll around in my head until I decided to do more prints. I had an unopened box of Ilford MGIV FB Classic and I wanted to try it. I decided I could reduce the paper tension by clamping the edges with less force. This worked flawlessly. Flat prints with no damage. I will give a complete report in a later post. For this I chose some photos my brother took while we were on a backpacking trip in the Maze district in Canyonlands in Ut...