Cyanotype Experimentation...

It's been so long... I don't even want to go into it! Four letter word, called LIFE got in the way. Lili got sick, I got sick, Chloe got sick... it was ridiculous. Well, I decided it was time to return to something more organic than digital photography- though if you want to get real, this is technically digital photography, since the negs are made from digital images (well... sometimes).

This first attempt... let's just say I decided this paper was not to be used anymore. It really didn't hold the chemical well. This other paper did MUCH better in terms of holding the cyanotype chemical. In addition, these two prints are (obviously) not negatives. It's too bad I was so messy with the spread with the bottles; it's actually kind of a neat print. I accidentally inverted it in photoshop and it looked REALLY cool and creepy, kind of Silent Hill style.

Now we get to the negatives. This first one was exposed too long, and thus is too dark.

So for this one, I tried to pull it early. This is the pull of laziness; I never write down the times for any of these, or the time of day. For this particular print, I know it was about two and half minutes in broad daylight, but it obviously wasn't enough.

This one I lucked out, and got some nice tones, even though it's still far from perfect. This is also the only print from film negatives.

Finally, I made a print on canvas. Turned out surprisingly well. I intend on making a painting out of this thing.

Spring Cleaning

During the process of Spring Cleaning (which is going really slowly, because I keep stopping to write and draw and such... oops.) I found two of my old cyanotypes and an old vandyke print of mine! I have a couple really tiny ones too somewhere, and when I find those, I'll post them as well. I've always loved the tea set print... easily one of my very favorite from college. :)

I think I may take up cyanotypes again... they are so direct, and so easy, and so organic, I just love them! I mean, can you over expose a cyanotype? Yes... but it's somewhat hard to do. Plus, with the ease of computers, you can make negatives as big as you want.