So the other week the one strobe light I had been using decided that it was going to die. It was frustrating, but I'm pretty sure it was a sign that I needed to work on my varnish. The varnishing has be a frustrating process. I've had to filter it so many times in order to get all of the bugs, twigs, leaves, etc out of it from the Gum Sandarac. Once I filtered it plenty of times, I had problems with getting a smooth finish. Tiny bubbles kept appearing. The book I've been using recommends to heat both the plate and varnish - this seemed to make the bubbles even worse. Eventually I tried not heating anything, and it worked much better. The second issue I encountered was the varnish making the images very dark. Michael recommended that I thinned the varnish down with a little more alcohol, then it wouldn't be so heavy. Low and behold that worked!
I now have two working strobes. It took some time figuring out the exposure, but I think I've got it. Now I just have to battle with the Advanced Digital class for the strobes. I've attempted roughly 30 tintypes to date. Tonight I hope to do seven more different people, and I have a few others lined up. Things are starting to go smoothly, so I guess we'll see what decides to go wrong next.
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