Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 77

Today's post is a good example of why I am never bored with this process.

On the solstice I prepared two prints, both with the same leaves - milkweed, Japanese knotweed, box elder, and some bonus black locust on one - both on cotton sateen, same blend of cyanotype chemicals with a splash of Solarfast. I put them out within 15 minutes of each other on a warm, evenly sunny day.

After a long exposure, but before rinsing, they looked like this. One is a bit less dramatic, perhaps, but both pretty standard at this point.

And here are the finished prints. The first one is a bit pale, with dark outlines.

The second one is pale all over, yet still well defined. It's a bit unlike any result I've had before, and I think it's just lovely.

So why are they so different? The only variable is that  I ran out of sheet plastic to cover them, so on the second one I used a slightly thinner gauge of plastic sold as a painting drop cloth. But why would that affect how the chemicals reacted? More experimentation is obviously needed, to see if it can be  replicated or it's just a happy accident. So on to the next printmaking session!

Thanks as always for reading! You can also follow along on your platform of choice:

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/

 

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 76

Hello, welcome to part 76 of my experiments in wet cyanotype. I've been at this since June of 2017, and show no signs of stopping. Each and every time I have a printmaking session I am enchanted by the process. I share my experiments, the good, the bad, and the indifferent (although it's mostly been good) simply because it brings me pleasure to do so, and in the hopes that you enjoy following along. 

This time out I started with some common mullein leaves, Verbascum thapsus. It's originally a European species, but it's been here since the 1700's. As far as I know it's not causing any serious problems in the way some non-native invasives do. I usually encounter it as solitary plants that are integrated into the wild landscape. It's a biennial, so its first year it grows a rosette of leaves, and the next summer it sends up a truly impressive flower stalk. 

I love the leaves because they are huge, and they are fuzzy. They are very dramatic in a print, and the thick furry leaves can manage a long exposure in the sun without collapsing. For scale, these prints are cotton sateen panels about 24" x 48". In the first panel I used just mullein, and in the second added a huge leaf (I have a thing about huge leaves, obviously) from a cultivated Ligularia 'Desdemona', and a quartet of oakleaf hydrangea leaves. 

I mixed the cyanotype chemicals with a slug of Solarfast green, and watered them down just a bit because I was at the end of my ready mixed supply and needed to stretch it.

Here are the panels after a nice long exposure. The weather was in the mid-70s F and the sun peeked in and out of the clouds.

Here they are after rinsing and finishing. They are a bit paler than my usual but the seemed to suit the day and the weather and the general ambiance of early June very well.

I love how the darker tones are concentrated around the leaf shapes. I rank these as very successful prints, and will be using them in an art quilt.

Thanks as always for reading! You can also follow along on your platform of choice:

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/

 

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.

Thanks as always for reading! You can also follow along on your platform of choice:

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/