Sue Reno Studio: Experiments in wet cyanotype

May 20, 2026

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 102

Hello, and welcome to the 2026 season of my wet cyanotype printmaking. I've been at this particular part of my artistic practice since 2017 and I'm still going strong. I started this session with some blooming black cherry twigs. In the first photo I'm roughly auditioning their placement on the cotton sateen panel before applying the cyanotype and Solarfast chemicals.

Here's the same panel with the wet chemicals applied and the twigs and flowers carefully arranged. I did another slightly smaller panel with a slightly different mix of chemicals.

I had some pre-treated small sheets of fabric leftover from another project, so I used the last of the twigs to set up a traditional exposure.

Here are the two wet cyan panels after exposure but before rinse out. Flowers are, for me, one of the more difficult things to print, as it's easy to overexpose them and/or underexpose the leafy parts, so I wasn't completely confident that this would work out. It's looking reassuringly good at this stage.

Here are the finished prints. I am so happy with all the details, including the small individual blossoms sprinkled about. I'm also pleased with the cherry pink colors--these chemicals are a bit like pottery glazes in that you can't really tell when applying how they will finish up. I got it just right this time.