Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 75

My usual spring gardening activities were delayed this year, due to unseasonable cold and wet weather. So May turned into a very busy and intensive foray into pruning and planting. I moved here in the summer of 2019, and most of the first year was spent rejuvenating existing plantings and fighting a massive thistle invasion; after that I was able to begin to shape things to my liking. This spring it seems like the plan is finally coming together.

Anyway, part of the pruning involved a leatherleaf viburnum, which has taken off with great enthusiasm and needed some guidance and shaping. The leaves are very, well, leathery, but also have a lot of fine bristles on them. I thought they would be ideal for some long exposure wet cyanotype prints.

I set up a bunch of them on mineral paper, my current/ongoing obsession, and also did two larger ones on cotton sateen. I added just a small amount of Solarfast green to the chemical mix. This first batch of photos is before exposure.

Here they are after exposure and before rinsing. 

The little bristles on the surface of the leaves adhered fairly firmly to the surface of the mineral paper in a lot of spots.

Rather than try to pick them off and risk damaging the paper, I decided to wait and gently soak the leaf fragments off in the rinse.

On the sateen prints this was less of a problem.

Here are the finished prints. They were well worth the little bit of extra trouble!

There's tons and tons of variation to look and marvel at.

So unpredictable and so cool.

The prints on the sateen are a little less wild but no less lovely.

This last image is number 974 that I've posted since I started documenting my wet cyanotype experiments, so I'm quickly approaching 1,000 with no sign of slowing down. I hope some of you have been enjoying coming along for this ride as much as I've enjoyed sharing it.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 74

 

After a long, wet, and dreary winter and early spring, the weather finally turned and I had the motivation and the time to do a few wet cyanotype prints. (I clocked a lot of time during the dreary days at the machine, stitching on new quilts, with results to follow later.)

A quick tour around the garden and woods turned up some vibrant burdock leaves, a sprig of bleeding heart leaves, and a fresh fern frond. I set these up with the mixture of cyanotype chemicals, plus a small squirt of Solarfast solar dye, on mineral paper, my current favorite non-fabric substrate.

Out they went into the bright spring sunlight. I also prepped a cotton sateen panel with more bleeding heart leaves and a Kousa dogwood twig. None of this was carefully thought through, I just wanted get back into practice at summoning up that old wet cyan magic.

After exposure but before rinsing, it was looking like I still had the touch. There's so much going on with the burdock leaves!

Along with lots of cool swirly stuff with the bleeding heart and fern.

In the fabric print, you can see hints of the red Solarfast.

And here are the finished prints. 

Mineral paper is such an interesting product.  Made with rock derived calcium carbonate and a small amount of binder, it is smooth and water resistant, so at first the cyanotype chemicals swirl all around. but at some point, while baking in the hot sun, they begin to adhere to the paper, with the leaves providing an imperfect resist. I can only partially control the process, which is why I find it endlessly fascinating.

I am also pleased with the print on cotton sateen, there's lots of subtle circular patterning and crisp leaf edges. All together it's a good start to the printmaking season.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 56

Still catching up on documenting the summer's prints sessions. This was the last batch of wet cyanotype prints on mineral paper, made in the last warm and mellow days of September.

The first two are fern fronds from my garden.

Followed by a maple twig, and a bit of the horribly invasive but good for printmaking Japanese knotweed.

Here are the prints after exposure, but before rinsing and finishing.

Once again, I am delighted by the way the chemicals move around on the slick surface of the mineral paper before settling down and permanently staining it. 

Those rusty tones are spectacular but will rinse out, so I'm glad I always take a moment to record them at this stage.

Here are the finished prints.

So much swirly goodness!

And nice crisp leaf outlines on the knotweed print. November has turned a bit dreary, as per usual, and it's good to have some summery goodness to reflect back on.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 55

Reporting in with another batch of wet cyanotype prints on mineral paper, made at the tail end of a warm and sunny September.

This batch is 4 different arrangements of wild fox grape leaves, damaged by the usual ravages of weather and insects.

Once again, I marveled at how the cyanotype chemicals swirled around on the paper at the beginning of the exposure. The bulk of my wet cyan work has been done on fabric, which absorbs the chemicals and behaves very differently.

Here's the prints after exposure, but before rinsing.

I put these out on a hot afternoon, then got distracted. It was a full 24 hours before I had a chance to remove the leaves and bring the prints indoors.

I got a lot a really interesting colors and designs in that time period; however, that was counterbalanced by the way the leaves got dried and stuck onto the paper in places.

I had to spend some time soaking and very, very gently scrubbing to remove the leaf fragments. 

So while I would not recommend this degree of over-exposure, the results are very unique and beautiful! Here are the finished prints.

There is so much variation in tone and intensity in these.

I think they capture that end-of-summer, brink-of-decay moment really well.

This one shows a lot of the leaf veining as well. 

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