"Bristlecone Pine"
Bristlecone Pine
James Mickelson
Media: Bromoil
Framed Size: 23"x19"
Price: $200 without frame
$250 with frame
Artist Statement:
The world is full of interesting subjects which engage my curiosity and imagination. Whether it is a scene or an item found in my travels or created from my imagination I use my camera to capture these images in order to study them more closely. I study the pictures and in time the images evolve into an idea which informs me as to how they should be printed. What printing process would bring out the qualities I see in these images and so I explore each of them in those different processes. I have been using photography for many years as a vehicle to satisfy my need to create beauty and satiate my creative desires. There are many artists in myriad disciplines who inspire me to create. Be they painters, sculptors, musicians, writers or photographers, they all offer to me inspiration and the techniques needed to create for myself the beauty I see and experience in my daily life.
Process:
The bromoil printing process was invented by C. Welbourne Piper in 1907 whereby an enlargement could made of a photograph onto a chlorobromide paper, erase the silver and substitute the silver with an oil based ink. By using copper sulfate to dissolve the silver and potassium dichromate and potassium bromide to tan the gelatin depending on how light or dark the areas of the image were the surface of the gelatin assumes a physical relief corresponding to the initial shadows and highlights of the image. In other-wards the ink replaces the silver.
