Bostick & Sullivan Carbon Tissue

[sanking]

Fortunately no tragedies are due (yet) to wine or scotch but they are certainly due to the about 25 freaken variables. What amazes me is there are only about 5 or 6 known carbon transfer authors/utubers and each do a number of things differently. If the same was true to the same degree of silver gelatin printing it would have never gotten off of the ground.

Most people would never attempt to learn carbon on their own if they had any idea what they were getting into. Some alternative print making processes are quite easy and you can follow a good article or video and make good prints in a month or so. Processes like gum bichromate, kallitype, vandkye, platinum/palladium (and even combinations such as platinum over gum, platinum over cyanotype, etc) are also fairly easy to learn. Sensitizing and drying procedures are fairly routine, and you can make 5-10 tests within 2-3 hours.

Carbon is more like gravure. It is a long road trip and don't expect to complete it in a day, or even in a week. In fact, even when you have learned to make perfect tissue, good tests still take 4-6 hours from sensitizing to final print. And some of this stuff, quite frankly, would take you years to learn on your own. Believe me, I know, because I learned carbon in the late 70s and 80s when no one was doing workshops that taught the process from tissue making to final print, and I learned through trial and error. And there was a lot of error.

That said, the principles of carbon are not that complicated, once you really understand them. What Vaughn Hutchins does, for example, is really not all that different from what Sandy King does, at least so much as they pertain to the carbon process itself.

However, if you have the time and the money to spare, and really want to learn this process, spare yourself a lot of head scratching by doing a workshop with a good carbon printer. You may wind up coming to the conclusion that carbon is not for you, but that in itself could save you a lot of frustration trying to learn the process on your own. I have had students who go home and realize fairly soon that carbon is not for them, and others who have continued and now are masters of the process, and teaching workshops themselves, who tell me that the workshop with me saved them at least two years on their own of trial and error.

Sandy

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Variables are fun!

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Sandy brings up several good points. Carbon is truly a labor of love. To master the process takes time and as Sandy says and students may or may not find that it is for them. If you find it is for you the you will be in for a wonderful ride.

[tgtaylor]

To anyone that's interested in learning a new process, regardless if it's "alternative" or "modern," I recommend that you stick with that single process until you have mastered it. I started learning the alternative processes with Cyanotype and once I got a decent print jumped to the Kallitype, Van Dyke, etc., until I got to the salted print which I thought would be around a week. But for some reasons I kept coming back to the salt print even though I had purchased the chemistry for the Ziatype. After several months I mastered the salt print process but still keep on printing with the salt process even though I know I should revisit the earlier processes that I worked with to truly master those as well and, of course, to the Ziatype before the chemistry expires.

Thomas

[Wally H]

Jim - easy for you to say
Sandy - when is your next workshop (or I'll be forced to visit Jim)?

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Wally, I will be closer when we move to Vancouver Washington at the end of the year. Then being retired I can offer workshops on a regular basis.

[ImSoNegative]

I would suggest watching Jim's videos on the subject, very informative.

[John Jarosz]

+1 to the 10th power on Sandy's comments

[Wally H]

That's where I started - Jim's videos. I blame him.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Wally, I'm good with that! I told the people I work with that when I retire they can blame everything on me as well. Now getting back to the OP's original question about B&S tissue. I've used a roll and I found that it was not for me. It depends on how you start out I feel. I think it is important to control the process all of the way. They make a nice tissue and it does take some of the time out of the process but this simple step is critical I feel to creating your"look" to your carbon prints. I jumped in with both feet and thanks to Vaughn with his help and encouragement I was on my way. If you can see a print and especially a negative this will help and it will get you hooked. The thing with carbon is that it is addictive once you see a decent print. Once you create a beautiful print there is no going back and the time becomes a non issue. Yes, there is so much to learn and know but before you know it the years go by and you are a carbon printer. You have to find what works for you and if carbon is for you be ready to spend a lot of time and by all means take a workshop. It will help with the understanding and save some time.
Good luck.