"Painting" with developer. Experiences?

[esc_ctrl]

I'd like to try some new stuff in the darkroom and want to try to "paint" with developer on the exposed paper. Anyone here tried this? How are your experiences?
I was wondering if I have to compensate exposure and what other factors I have to consider to get good results. Also what kind of brush would work best?

 

[nongfuspring]

I did some experiments with this while working on book covers as an illustrator. Developer has no pigment so any brush works fine, though fine acrylic bristle brushes (for example) will apply more evenly. Tests worked out OK but there were better options in the end for what I was aiming to do.

I can't give any advice re: exposure because I don't know what you're going for. My only advice is to experiment a lot and work fast. Consider diluting the developer to buy yourself more time to manage tonality and try using dev, stop, fix simultaneously.

 

[esc_ctrl]

Tahnks for the advice. Why should I try using dev, stop and fix simultaneously? Can't I just paint the developer and then continue as usual?

 

[farlymac]

Back about forty some years ago, when I had my first enlarger, a shipmate and I used to experiment with finger painting on scraps of photo paper. We just turned on the lights, dipped a finger in the developer, and proceeded to make all sorts of swirls on the paper. It looked like smoke curls when it hit a certain point in the development. Then we just dunked them in the stop bath. Drops of developer from a height of about 12 inches looked impressive too, what with the various splatter patterns.

Another thing we tried was exposing the print normally, and then using the finger method, selectively developing certain parts of the image (under darkroom light, of course).

PF

 

[froyd]

Sounds interesting. Examples, please!

 

[nongfuspring]

Tahnks for the advice. Why should I try using dev, stop and fix simultaneously? Can't I just paint the developer and then continue as usual?

Sure, if you like, but it helps if you want adjacent areas of different darkness.