Blogging for Freya: Life's Hard

Hello, my lovely little spiders. This is the latest I've ever been with a weekly blog and it's because I'm a big fat sack of sad. I tried to be a Real Adult and got my hopes and dreams promptly smashed by artist statements, online portfolios, pay stubs, W-2 forms, calculators and words like "references", "application fee", "copay" and "deductible." It was all very harrowing, and I retaliated against the world's cruelty by reading internet comics for 48 hours and trying not to try. Then I made cookies, did art and kicked myself in the balls until I felt better. Or at least until I was able to convince myself I felt better. I think Allie Brosch summed it up really well.

Anyway, that's over. I've been finding it harder and harder to get myself to experiment and actually do art, which makes it harder and harder to write this blog since I have nothing exciting and amazing to report. Part of that is the weather and the season. I work with plants and there aren't a lot of plants around in the winter. A few, yes, but not many. The sunlight is also duller, the days colder and typically cloudier. Exposures take a lot longer, and since it gets dark earlier, I have less time to do them anyway. It's just a bad season for my chosen type of work.

Now, all that said, I have been doing some experiments. Slowly, painfully, but they're happening. For my Birthday (woo?) I was given two packs of very cool lumen paper. Harman Direct Positive paper and some Ilford Warmtone RC.  I'd been wanting to try another warm-tone paper for a while. They tend to have really cool effects when fixed, as opposed to neutral-tone papers that generally have very disappointing effects when fixed.

I may also save some of the Ilford Warmtone and try chromoskedasic sabatier once I get back into the university darkroom in January. This is a really fun process that makes for some awesome chemigrams, or can be combined wit regular contact printing! I discovered that process in a workshop with Angela Wells, from ECU, back at SPESE '13. It was very fun, but it DOES need a darkroom and certainly isn't as home-friendly as my favored processes are. Still, pretty cool stuff!

Tonight, I wanted to talk about the Harman Direct Positive paper. It's pink, y'all. Totally pink. Bright, Barbie-and-Bubblegum pink. Straight out of the box, it's instantly pink. I have no idea if, like color photo paper, it turns instantly upon exposure to light, or if it's actually supposed to be pink and that goes away when you develop it? No idea! It's pink. It's also really sloooow. We are talking 2-3 day exposures for a lumen print. That's insane. Seriously insane. I left a sheet out for two cloudy days and saw no change at all. It took a third full day of bright sun to change the paper. Today I left another sheet out and after five hours of bright, sunny weather, no change. It's the slowest lumen paper I've ever heard of at all. I contacted another experienced lumen printer about it and he agreed. He went so far as to say he didn't consider the paper useful for lumens at all. I'm not sure I agree yet. I hope I don't, since that was expensive paper and now that it's exposed to light, lumens are all it's good for....unless I try chromoskedasic sabatier on it? HUH. Might do.

When the Direct Positive paper finally does start changing, it isn't that dramatic. The bubblegum-pink shades into Barney-purple and finally into a dull blue. Moisture seems to cause it to bleach back to white, which may be interesting when spring rolls around and there are fresh plants to use again. I'll probably put further Direct Positive experiments on hold until spring, honestly. See what it does with better light, heat and subject matters.

That's all for now folks! Hopefully I can get moving on all the many things I have to do before January 15th and make some of my dreams come true. Oh, crippling fear of change, you're so crippling.