I've been involved with the Rawlins Oil process for almost a year now and have had a tumultuous relationship with my sensitizing technique. The Rawlins process involves sensitizing a piece of gelatin coated watercolor paper with sensitizer, exposing by way of direct contact with the negative, washing, swelling and inking with lithographic ink. I am coating my watercolor paper with 8% gelatin and .1 grams alum per liter. My sensitizer is a 10% stock solution of Potassium Dichromate cut in half 1:1 with acetone so I sensitize at 5%. For a surface area of 170 square inches (roughly 13x13 inch) I use 16ml of solution. I dampen my 3" foam brush in distilled water and shake out all the excess water before brushing. I pour about 8ml onto the surface and brush just until I feel the surface grab the brush than I pour the second 8ml and repeat. Toward the end of the brushing, before the paper starts to grab I barely apply pressure to the surface as if to feather out any lines that may be present. I then let the paper dry under safelights for 5 minutes before putting a fan on it to completely dry, about 15 more minutes.
About half the time the print dries without streaks and half the time it dries with streaks. It is VERY dry up here at 8000 feet in Colorado, could it be lack of humidity that is causing streaking? All the materials that I use are stored at ambient temperatures. I tried to store my PD in the fridge once but it came out of solution so I wont do that again. Thanks for the help...Jeff
Bookmarks