Hand-coloring Ambrotypes?

[Mark Sawyer]

I've been doing a fair number of Ambrotypes lately and have been thinking of hand-coloring some of them. This was a very common practice in the 19th century, but seems fairly rare today. I was wondering if anyone knows of a resource for information on this? A fairly extensive internet search yielded one semi-practical result, but dealt mostly with coloring tintypes:

http://www.thevictorianphotographer....lodion-images/

Anyone know of other information out there? Thanks muchly!

[PRJ]

Mark, I've never colored ambrotypes but back when I was young I hand colored photographs quite a bit and before I took up photography I painted. If I were going to do it I would start with oil paints, and stick to the transparent colors (which is what I used to do). Pretty much every paint company has a chart to let you know how transparent and how permanent their colors are. You can dilute the color with a medium called Liquin which will make it dry a lot faster and also help with transparency. Oil paints are much easier to control than acrylic and watercolors. I wouldn't bother with inks or dyes. That is off the top of my head. Hope it helps.

[Mark Sawyer]

Mark, I've never colored ambrotypes but back when I was young I hand colored photographs quite a bit and before I took up photography I painted. If I were going to do it I would start with oil paints, and stick to the transparent colors (which is what I used to do). Pretty much every paint company has a chart to let you know how transparent and how permanent their colors are. You can dilute the color with a medium called Liquin which will make it dry a lot faster and also help with transparency. Oil paints are much easier to control than acrylic and watercolors. I wouldn't bother with inks or dyes. That is off the top of my head. Hope it helps.

Everything helps, PRJ! Thank you. I'm thinking along the same lines about transparent oil paints, but I'm also thinking about the Winsor Newton drawing inks, which are also transparent and are shellac-based. (Shellac was often used as a varnish for collodion images.) I'll be using a gloss-black solvent-based enamel over that. I think things will be compatible with either, but I'm not sure about acrylic colors with oil enamel.

[LabRat]

Folks that colored prints just used Marshall's oil colors, and probably ok for positives...

Steve K

[Mark Sawyer]

The Marshall's oil colors are a possibility, but they dry veeeeery slowly, and I'm not sure how they'd adhere to the black enamel covering on the back of the plate.

[Mark Sawyer]

mark have you thought of suspending the color in encaustic wax or gelatin ?
when I dabbled in hand coloring silver gelatin glass plates I used to coat the plates
after the images were dry and in the top coat I'd tint them.. might not work with collodion but
who knows ..

There needs to be a black backing over the collodion emulsion and coloring agent. The richest black is black enamel, which won't stick to wax, and may have trouble with the gelatin. (Darn it!)

[jodyake]

i have seen people grind pastels or they used powder pigment and gently dab the color on with a make up brush. if i remember correctly they would breath on the plate so the pigment would stick to the collodion

[Tin Can]

Good tip!

i have seen people grind pastels or they used powder pigment and gently dab the color on with a make up brush. if i remember correctly they would breath on the plate so the pigment would stick to the collodion

[Mark Sawyer]

i have seen people grind pastels or they used powder pigment and gently dab the color on with a make up brush. if i remember correctly they would breath on the plate so the pigment would stick to the collodion

Thank you, Jody! I'm going to try some powdered pigments by the method you refer to. My concern is whether they'll move around when the enamel backing is applied. We shall see...

I also ordered a set of Winsor & Newton transparent drawing inks, to be applied wet with a brush. Again, we shall see...

[Jim Noel]

I believe the traditional method was transparent watercolor. The advantage is the possibility of easy removal as used by watercolorists. I've never hand colored a complete print, but I do small parts, and use nothing else for spotting prints made by any process.