Arabic gum drawing
Materials:
- Gum arabic
- Shellac
- Asphalt
Making drawings using gum arabic is an easy way to mask areas that should stay white (nonprinting areas). Gum arabic may also be used to keep masked areas in specific state while drawing on the rest of unmasked stone. It is used to cover the edges of the stone for protection against oily smudges of fingers and other greasy traces that may appear during the drawing process. Masks painted with gum are insoluble by acetone, turpentine and other solvents except water. Water dissolves it making hard to predict washes (or white stains). Painting with gum arabic is a negative technique.
Grain the lighographic stone well, wash it out with water and dry fully. The stone can be painted with a brush soaked with gum arabic. The effect depends on the type of brush and the amount of gum that is used. A hard brush that is almost dry leaves characteristic sharp traces, a soft soaked one – organic ones. You can spray the gum, use stencils, make splatters…
Every image painted this way will be white on black background if it was made on a non-greasy surface. In the gallery above there is an example of a drawing made with gum on a thin layer of asphaltum.
When the gum arabic drawing is dry, the format of the image can be defined (if it wasn’t made before). The surface of the stone outside the chosen format has to be covered with gum arabic and dried as well.
When the stone is dry, we can rub it with shellac and asphaltum. If the image was made on a layer of asphaltum, the stone has to be cleaned with turpentine and dried before applying shellac and asphaltum.
In next step gum arabic has to be completely washed out with water. Afterwards roll up the stone with black ink. The drawing should be sharp.
The second etching doesn’t have to be strong (unless the drawing was made on top of a thinned asphaltum layer). After dusting with rosin and talcum only gum arabic can be used and stronger etching may be applied on the white areas to keep them clean.