Van Dyke brown printing is an iron and silver nitrate based contact-printing method, first credited to Sir John Herschel in 1842. The process, which was named after the Flemish Baroque painter Anthony Van Dyke, produces earth tones, including black, sepia, and brown, reminiscent of his palette.

Van Dyke brown prints are very simple and economical to make, with the sensitizer that makes up the emulsion consisting of three readily available chemicals. Images are converted into digital negatives, using an inkjet printer on transparency film, and then contact printed with UV light (the sun, if weather permits) and developed/fixed with water and hypo.

In conjunction with his exhibition at Aurora, artist Aaron Turner will lead this one-session workshop on the Van Dyke brown printing process. In the workshop, Turner will outline the process for outputting images as digital negatives; a set of already-printed digital negatives will be on hand for use during the workshop. We will learn the basics of coating the paper for exposure, and then get hands-on by exposing and fixing our own 8 x 10 Van Dyke prints.

A basic knowledge of alternative processes is desirable, but the Van Dyke process is very easy to grasp, and all skill levels are welcome to enroll. All equipment and materials will be supplied on site. This workshop is best suited to artists 16+ years old; minors must be accompanied by an adult.

Aaron Turner is an artist, educator, and independent curator based in Northwest Arkansas. He uses photography as a transformative process to understand the ideas of home and resilience in two main areas of the U.S., the Arkansas and Mississippi Deltas. Aaron also uses the 4 x 5 view camera to create still-life studies on identity, history, blackness as material, and abstraction. Aaron received his M.A. from Ohio University and an M.F.A from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He was a 2018 Light Work Artists-in-Residence at Syracuse University, a 2019 EnFoco Photography Fellow, a 2020 Visual Studies Workshop Project Space Artists-in-Residence, a 2020 Artist 360 Mid-America Arts Alliance Grant Recipient, the 2021 Houston Center for Photography Fellowship Recipient, a 2021 Creators Lab Photo Fund recipient from Google’s Creator Labs & the Aperture Foundation,2022 Darryl Chappell Foundation photographer-in-residence at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council. 

Image: Aaron Turner