Experimenting on how to blacken the back of clear glass ambrotypes. Today and yesterdays experiment was to use a black acrylic paint.
I made a mixture of cheaper Acrylic black paint with my modern varnish and a bit of black ink thrown it. Then I taped off a plate and poured the black molasses like goop in. There was some leakage (better tape?) but the process seemed to work, it dried overnight and made a nice ambrotype. I will try it with a red acrylic paint as well.
Did another test with only black ink in varnish, but that was too fluid, too messy to use, and did not dry completely black. A failure there!
I think for possible archival reasons I will need to first varnish the plate, before doing the second coat of the acrylic paint/varnish goop. It seems to me that acrylic paints (if they are of good quality) should be archival as they are on painting in museums world wide. I have read online that the acrylic paint is often the most archival material used by a painter.
