Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 16

 Another round of prints made in the deepest, darkest days around the winter solstice, proving that wet cyanotype printing is not just a summer fling. These were started on a sunny day where the temperature flirted with 50F. A month ago I had preserved some sweet gum leaves by soaking them in a glycerin solution. They weren't pretty, but they were intact and flexible, and I was curious to see how they would print. Above is a preserved leaf, on treated cotton sateen, at the beginning of the process with some soda solution sprayed around the edges. Below is another sweet gum leaf with two alpine strawberry leaves fresh from the garden, also with soda ash.

 We've had snow and hard freezes, but alpine strawberries are remarkable resilient little plants.

 Also still intact in the garden were these meadowsweet fronds. I don't think I've every printed with them before, but I have high hopes. They are very fern-like in their structure.

 Speaking of ferns, here's a frond from the aptly named Christmas fern, which will stay green most of the winter, along with a purple heuchera leaf.

 I finished out this batch with another preserved sweetgum leaf, this time on treated soil noil. The silk has a natural water resistance that tends to repel the cyanotype solution as I'm painting it on. Sometimes I double-coat it, but here I left it slightly splotchy.

 I left the prints out to expose for about 24 hours. The temperature dropped into the 30's overnight but didn't go below freezing. Here are the prints with the leaves removed, before rinsing. As with the other prints I've made in late fall, they tend towards the dark and mysterious.

 I know from experience that the beautiful leaf veining I see here will probably rinse out, so it's good to preserve it digitally.

 Lots of good splotchiness in the silk noil print.

 Here are the finished prints. They look very wintery, don't they?

 All photos enlarge when clicked.

 They look like they are caught in a snow storm.

There's lots of good detail in the meadowsweet print.

I wish I could better capture the texture on this silk noil print. All those speckles correspond to a bit of nubby texture.

All in all, a good batch of prints and I'm happy I put in the effort to capture what's going on in the garden even when all seems dark and cold.

If you are new here, welcome! I've been detailing and documenting my experiments with wet cyanotype in great detail; you can read it in reverse chronological order by clicking the Wet Cyanotype tab in the top header, or click here.

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