Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 18

 I've been impatient. I could say it's because winter has been long, but winter is always long, at least perceptually, by April. More to the point it's been relentlessly cold and wet and dreary, and all the joys of spring seem delayed.

 So I jumped on the first few outlier daffodils to bloom and attempted wet cyanotype prints with them; there was not enough sun or warmth and the results were unexciting.

 A few days later, thankfully, there was a brief window of sunshine and temperatures hovering around 60F. In a sheltered spot by a wall the chionodoxa, glory of the snow, had started to bloom, and I picked some for printmaking.

 I also found a few fat Dutch crocuses.

 I used my standard treatment of a spritz of diluted pink textile paint, a spritz of diluted washing soda, and then some plain water to bring it up to a guesstimate of the right amount of moisture. I covered the arrangements with panes of glass and set them out to process.

 The sun held all afternoon, and I had some good breakdown and movement of the chemicals. The flowers are delicate, they wither and break down fairly quickly, so a 5 hour exposure seemed about right. Also, more cold and rain was on the the way, so I pulled them all back inside. Here are the un-rinsed prints:

 Those gold sparkly bits make me so happy.

 Here are the finished prints:

 The flowers are small and don't have a lot of presence in these photos, but in person they are lovely. They will look really good with the addition of stitching to delineate the forms.

 I'm particularly happy with the crocuses:

Chiondoxa and crocuses are classified as ephemeral flowers, they go through the above-ground portion of their life cycle quickly, when there's less competition for sunlight, then go dormant. I feel like "ephemeral" is a good descriptor for these images.

So, I have successfully scratched the wet cyan printing itch for the moment. More cold and wet weather is in the forecast, but at some point it will break loose and things will be bursting forth all at once. I will spend my time treating more fabric in anticipation.

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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