Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 81

 

They are all special, but this one has some extra panache. Take a look with me as I continue to wrap up my year in botanical printmaking.

It's been a long standing unfulfilled desire of mine to grow a fig tree outdoors; various practical factors have prevented it. So when I spotted a beautiful specimen in a friend's garden, asked to harvest a few leaves for printmaking, and she graciously agreed, it was a red letter day for me.

I brought the leaves home, lightly pressed them, and prepared my most chaotic set up to date for wet printing with cyanotype and solarfast chemicals on cotton sateen. Above are the prints before exposure, below shows them after exposure and before rinsing.

I didn't take detailed notes on how I laid them out, I was in a bit of a frenzy, so even more so then most this is one-of-a-kind.

I absolutely love the fine leaf veining detail that's showing up here. This is due to how I applied the chemicals, the weather conditions, and the various saps and physical conditions of the leaves themselves.

Here are the finished prints. The large panel is roughly 2 ft. x 4 ft. I am going to have spend some time with it, deciding how to use it in a quilt. I am over the moon with the detail and complexity of it.

The smaller individual prints retained that fine structure even after rinsing out. 

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