Chemigrams How-To

LAURA WALKER

CHEMIGRAMS ARE CREATED BY FORCING A CHEMICAL REACTION BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHIC PAPER AND PHOTOGRAPHIC CHEMISTRY.

On a sunny Saturday six students from The Mill Arts Centre Trust in Banbury took part in a Chemigram workshop lead by Laura Walker. “In this workshop, we used Ilford Warm Tone Resin Coated Paper, Ilford Pear Resin Coated Paper, Ilford Universal Developer, Ilford Warm Tone Developer and Ilford Rapid Fixer. The beauty of this process is that you don’t need a darkroom to achieve stunning results.

Students started by learning how to make a positive and negative chemigram using a selection of flowers and shrubbery. We used the Ilford Pearl Resin Coated Paper for this initial activity. Students got to choose between the Warm Tone and Universal developers, thinking about which developer would suit their image best. Students dipped their items (flowers & leaves) into either the developer or fix first. These items were then placed onto a sheet of photographic paper where students could then paint attentional chemistry onto the paper if they wanted to. Once the chemicals had started to react with the paper, the items were removed and the paper was placed into either a tray of developer or fix.

After students had practiced making a positive and negative chemigram they started to experiment with different resists. Resists are used to stop the development between the paper and chemistry. In this workshop students experimented with Wax, Nail Polish, Syrup, Vegetable Spray Oil, Paint and Olive Spray Oil. As the weather was good, we were also able to expose the images to the sun (lumen printing process) which added really interesting effects to both the Pearl and Warm Tone Papers.”

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