Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 36

 While waiting as patiently as possible for things to leaf out and the wet cyanotype printmaking season to start up on earnest, I made a few quick prints. The Pieris andromeda prints with buds turned out nicely a few weeks ago, so I repeated the experiment with them in bloom. 

 The first one I did straight, with just water, and on the second one I added some soda ash around the edges. These are all on cotton sateen I treated with the cyanotype chemicals. Here they are under glass and starting to process.

 I kept the exposure time relatively short, about 90 minutes, because that's all the longer the fragile flowers lasted.

Dimensional flowers, like daffodils or irises, are not good candidates for this technique. They get smushed under the glass and a lot of detail gets lost. I did some daffodil prints last spring and they ended up basically as blobs (which I then cut up and used in patchwork). I knew this, and yet here I was, with a sunny day and a yard full or daffodils and the hope that springs eternal in the heart of an experimentalist, so I gave it another go.

 Here are the exposed, unrinsed prints. I'm very happy with this one:

 And also with this one--a very dramatic example of the difference the soda ash can make.

 And I felt cautiously optimistic about this one. Again, I tried to hit the sweet spot for exposure length.

 Here are the finished, rinsed and ironed prints. I love the delicacy of this one:

 And I also love the energy here:

 The daffodil print is my best to date, but still not up to my standards. But that's ok! The whole point here is to experiment, hone my skills, and learn from each session, so it still counts as a success.

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July 2022 Update: This post has been doing some numbers, so I wanted to say hello, and thank you, to everyone stopping by. I also wanted to let you know that this exploration turned into a series of 78 posts, and counting! You can easily access them, in reverse chronological order, by clicking on the Wet Cyanotype tab in the top header. I share a lot of details about what I've tried, and am always honest about the results in each post. Mixed in is the occasional post showing artquits I've made with my prints. I hope you enjoy reading my blog, learn a thing or two, and try your own hand at this very enjoyable process.