Making large Van Dyke brown prints:

Step 1:

Coating the paper

Once the paper has been coated and dried the equipment need to create the large work it assembled in a suitable location. In this case a large sheet of wood panel is used to lay the work out on and give support when the glass is laid on top to hold the negative flat.

This is done in an area of subdued lighting adjacent to the exposure area which will allow time to arrange the paper, neg etc. and then allow for the paper to be retrieved at the end of the exposure.

The sensitized sheets are quickly laid out on a board with the edges of each sheet butting up to each other or over lapping. If there are any flaws or holes in the sensitized emulsion where the paper was not fully coated these are positioned on the matrix to take advantage of the design of the image.

Step 2:

Then the large composite negative is laid on top of the sheets. The paper may move slightly and need to be readjusted.

Large sheets of glass are laid on top of the sandwich of coated sheets and negative to hold it all in place. Because of the nature of the composite photocopy negative in this case the exposure marks of the glass edges was anticipated and considered a part of the work. If you want to eliminate this you will need to find a very large piece of glass and a method of handling this.