Fun with Cyanotypes

Spent an enjoyable day running a Cyanotype Workshop. I printed quite a few images onto paper but also onto a cotton square and a T-shirt, which worked very well, giving a 3-D result 

Cyanotypes

Yesterday, I shared a day making Cyanotypes with members of Cambridge Camera club. Lots of fun was had doing both wet cyanotypes where various 'chemicals' can be added to the composition before exposing to the sun, and dry cyanotypes done on commercial precoated paper. As so often, it was the detail in some of the images before washing that took my eye.

Cyanotype printing onto Fabric

  I had a preliminary go at printing Cyanotypes onto fabric - here a piece of sheeting that I then sewed onto a garment. Next stage to try direct onto a T-shirt!! It was exposed in sunlight for about 15 minutes and then washed until the water stayed clear- the yellow  and orange are turmeric and paprika.

Cyanotypes

 As Saturday was a sunny day, I decided to have a play with more cyanotypes (see previous attempt last July here) The first of the three images shows the coated paper with specimens and various added substances - salt, paprika etc; the second after exposure before rinsing and the third when rinsed and dried. I think I probably exposed some for a bit too long to get the subtle tones - the 4th image shows the exposed brown state - interesting that the veins show on the leaves before washing but not after. I will try on a duller day for comparison.

Cyanotypes and Trees

Projects often don't work out the way I planned but sometimes the results can be just as interesting as a 'success' would have been.  I printed the tree outlines on what I thought was ink-jet compatible film but discovered it was not stable or solid enough to act as a mask when exposing a cyanotype-coated paper to the light. However the exposed cyanotype before removing the film and washing the print proved an excellent starting point for further manipulations in the computer. Different papers, exposure time and types of light have created variations and combining some with negatives of the tree images has furthered the variation.

Cyanotype Session - Rest of images

As documentation of the session, here are the remaining images starting with my favourite of a dragonfly corpse (and larval cases in next shot). The objects that work best are those where they can be flattened completely against the paper which does preclude a lot of subjects eg. the teasel head worked ok but the stem and leaves failed to register. Quite a few of these examples (3-8) have detergent bubbles and some are parts of images enlarged for details

 

Experimenting with Wet Cyanotypes

Before lockdown, we had plans to run a cynaotype workshop and had experimented making negative on film and printing cyanotypes on coated dry paper. I thought I would have a go at Wet Cyanotypes developed in the sunshine. Here are a few from the session showing the various stages and some results - more to follow. The things I experimented with were Clingfilm, turmeric, salt, citric acid and bicarb of soda. The images show some of the setups after exposing to the light with or without the objects in situ and before rinsing - brown coloration.  Once they are rinsed in water the prints are a blue colour.