Experiments in wet cyanotype, part 3

Emboldened by some success with experiments so far (see part 1 and part 2), I got slightly obsessive about making more prints.

The pre-treated cotton muslin was fun to play with, but realistically I was unlikely to use it in a quilt, which is the ultimate goal here, so I put that aside and worked with just my preferred cotton sateen that I had treated with the cyanotype chemicals. The sateen soaks up a lot of product, so there was a lot to react with the moisture during the long exposures.

I also started working a bit larger, using 9 x 12 inch panels and some 16 x 20. For round three I used plume poppy, Japanese anemone, and wood poppy leaves. I also used a bit more moisture, lightly spraying the foam board before laying the fabric on, and spraying again before topping with the glass. I continued to use dilute red dye-na-flow in the first spray, but I'm not certain it made as much of an impact on the sateen as it did on the muslin.

I am still not entirely used to these long exposures. My old normal was 10 - 15 minutes, so 24 hours is a long time to wait! I did have the fun of hovering over them and checking them frequently.

Here's the unrinsed prints after about 24 hours.

They are dark and lovely and mysterious.

It's sort of a shame they can't stay this way, but I have the images to enjoy.

And voila! Here are the finished images. Once again, I was surprised and amazed.

I felt like I was starting to suss out a good working method. The images are still unpredictable, but falling into a sort of pattern.

Time to make more and more!