Pigmented Wax Prints

This week's blog, features another member, Walt Jones and his method, adding another way of presenting images, an ongoing discussion on our group....

from Walt...
Finding the (wax) print

Plenty of people will disagree with me on this, but I’ll claim that the vast majority of so-called “fine art prints” come from a pretty narrow set of methods. On the digital side, you mostly have your Lightjet print and your pigmented ink print. Film, having been around a lot longer, gives us a slightly wider gamut of silver prints, platinum prints, various chrome prints, cyanotypes, etc, with most of them being slight variations on the same basic ideas. The point is, we’re pretty set in our ways. One walk through a large event like Photo LA and you’ll probably be able to count on two hands the number of printing methods in use.

I’ve used the mainstream methods as much as the next guy, but I’m also a strong proponent of experimentation and alternate processes. The question should be, “what medium and process best allows a particular image to find its voice?” If, as a fine art photographer, my prints are what will ultimately be my art, then I can’t just automatically pump things through the “archival pigmented ink on photo rag” process simply because that’s what photographers are doing at the moment. What happens when you print this image on wood? What happens when you print this image on aluminum? What can I do that will make the image more than just color or value on a surface?

More recently I’ve been experimenting a lot with what I call “pigmented wax prints.” The idea was actually born about from a conversation I had with a gallerist at a portfolio review event earlier this year. In the process of discussing a particular body of work, she again and again kept coming back to the idea of the images needing “another dimension” to really connect in the right way; either in the subject, or the message or the printing method itself. Discussing further, the idea arose of finding a way to actually bring aspects of the subject itself back into the printing method. Obviously, this isn’t something that’s often done. It’d be like printing a photograph of a person on human skin or, certainly less macabre, printing a photograph of a tree on wood. Immediately we’re into the territory of a fairly non-traditional process, but the idea is a solid one: bring the subject full circle. I’d already been toying around with a concept for a series of somewhat abstract photographs using liquid wax as a subject, so it seemed only natural to see if there was a way to bring wax into the actual printing process… a sort of reconnection with the encaustic painting methods popular at various times throughout history.

Thus began a fairly long process of research and experimentation seeing about ten months from the initial concept until I actually held a real print in my hands. I’m not going to share specific details of the final process, but my journey did reunite me with a technology I’d not touched since the early 1990s – solid ink printing. This effectively boils down to a process that combines organic dyes with vegetable waxes, then applied to various media using a method quite similar to that of inkjet printing. From afar the prints, depending on the paper used, are virtually indistinguishable from a standard pigmented ink print. Colors are vibrant, gradients are clean. But up close, there’s a different quality to the print – it actually looks waxy. This is not your standard “photograph” in the least. The subject has been brought full circle.

The original image before printing:

Closeup view of the work print showing the sheen of the wax:

An 8x10 work print created using the wax process on a cotton rag fine art paper:

*Walt Jones: Fine Art Photography* www.waltjones.com

Our thanks to Walt for sharing...
If you would care to share work,technique,philosophy as a Fine Art Photographer..please contact me at my email address..

all images are copyrighted by the artist.Usage without written permission strictly prohibited by law.