On a sunny and unseasonably warm day in early November I went searching for leaves still clinging to the trees here in Pennsylvania to use in the wet cyanotype process.
I found sassafras, maple, and oak leaf hydrangea still intact.
This was a spur of the moment printmaking urge, and I was enduring some home renovation that made my normal routine unworkable. Luckily, I had some fabric I'd already treated with the cyanotype chemicals stashed away waiting for a moment just like this.
I had some cotton sateen, and some silk noil. The silk is relatively thick, so it absorbs a lot of the chemicals, and it also has nibs that stick up above the surface a bit, all of which makes for a distinctive type of print. The sun was hot for November, but the daylength and hence the exposure was very short by my standards.
Here are the finished prints. They have a lovely, subdued quality to them.
The sassafras and maple prints are crisp around the edges, with some lovely marbling.
The prints on the silk noil are very atmospheric. They are hard to photograph well because of the depth of texture, but hopefully you get the idea.
This oak leaf hydrangea print will benefit from future stitching to give it more definition, but it's also beautiful just as it is.
This is (probably) the last wet cyanotype post of the year. When I started this series in 2017 I never imagined getting to 93 posts! I hit the 1200 image mark with this post, and I am nowhere near finished exploring this process. Whether you are new here, or have been following along for some time, please know I appreciate your viewership and support very deeply.
I'm now on Bluesky! Pick your platform to find and follow my content, and as always, thanks for reading.
