Liquid Light - Printing to Clayboard

Enlargers are like cats - one follows you home, and then another. An art teacher (Thank you, A.M.!) asked if I was interested in an enlarger a few months ago. I had been thinking about printing images onto things other than traditional paper. I was going to try making contact prints using various sensitized papers in the sun; however, an enlarger would open up a lot of different options.

The Beseler 23C then followed me home. Using Liquid Light, I started to print images (35mm and medium format) onto watercolor paper, clayboard, and wood. The image of the horse is from a 35mm negative - a night-time image of a sculpture in the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

35mm Kodak TMax - night exposure

35mm Kodak TMax - night exposure, version 2

The contrast range for the Liquid Light is limited, and I've had the best result with high-contrast negatives that are uncluttered - bold shapes and subjects that don't rely on a great deal of very fine detail.

Liquid Light requires a surface with a bit of tooth - cold-press watercolor paper works well. Another excellent surface is the Ampersand Clayboard. The Liquid Light sticks well, and the boards are easy to process, and easy to mount in various creative ways. I like to float them inside shadow boxes.

The watercolor paper requires a little more handling. When coating the paper, I use little magnets to hold the paper flat onto rigid plastic sheets - otherwise they curl from the application of the emulsion. After rinsing, the prints are inserted into a Delta Drying Book to flatten and dry.

After rinsing, I use the drying paper on the surface of the clayboard, then set the board onto a small rack to dry.

Clayboard print...

And now, back to the enlargers-as-cats theory... A.M. asked if I was interested in another enlarger - a Beseler 45. Since I have a large collection of large format negatives, it will be a great addition.

Beseler 45 - the scouting photo...

A little disassembly - part of it came home in a tiny car, the rest in the Jeep. It needs reassembly, and I need to figure out the space for it. Both will be used to project images onto various surfaces, as they can tilt to a horizontal position. As winter sets in, there will be plenty of time to experiment.