This was the view up to my shed yesterday. Another day of sunshine with a hint of a breeze. Perfect for my plan.
A few weeks ago an unexpected place came free on a course run by my talented chum
Sue Brown. It runs tomorrow and is gum arabic transfer on fabric. Now she has shown me this many times and sometimes I get it right and other times I don't but the chance to have a day away to play was too great to miss. Plus I am staying on in town after and catching up with an old work colleague that I have not seen for over 20 years. All in all, the prospect of a fabulous day out.
I have more than enough fabric in my stash to take with me but a few weeks ago I came across the Instagram page of a cyanotype artist called
Linda Clark Johnson. It was so interesting to see that she was playing with the process and pushing it by over exposing, leaving it in the rain and the dark etc for days rather than minutes! Then I noticed that the comments on her account came from lots of others also playing with the cyanotype variables. Most seem to live in warmer climates than mine but I contacted Linda to tell her that I will be giving this a try. I cannot resist trying to find new ways to come at something which is what I think I have been doing by using the process with rust and by also persisting with the ancient solution that I have, so it was a no brainer that the sunshine cried out for cyanotypes yesterday. I have fresh chemicals but there was still a lot of the 3 year old stuff left so I thought 'in for a penny' and coated a couple of strips of calico, thinking I might produce some extra fabric to use with the gum arabic transfers.
The calico is quite thin and I left it exposed much longer than usual, however the solution washed out to a denim blue and looked very faded. Some of the marks were strong, others not so much but I was throwing everything at it as resists. It was a real mish mash, no thought to design or layout but I love the results.
On the second strip I put some thin paper tags on top and then flowers etc on top of the tags so I got the best of both worlds. Now I have tag shapes on fabric to print into and paper tags to print onto if I so choose.
The results of the solution were much stronger on the paper than the fabric and it was quite freeing to just leave it and not do the usual monitoring and timing.
I love the results on the back of the tags as much as the front and I desperately want to use them in something that will showcase them as they are gorgeous. A real happy accident.
Finally I used the tail end of the soultion on some watercolour paper and some mount board. I've done this before and the mount board is perfect for book covers. Completely unrepeatable and not a proper cyanotype at all but again, I love the effect.
This morning I bleached a couple of them and they've now turned yellow and white. They are drying in today's sunshine and whilst it is tempting to carry on I have resisted the urge. I have more than enough paper and fabric for tomorrow and my hands are blue. I dread to think what my friend will make of me after all these years. She'll take one look at them and think I have really let myself go so I'd better not make them worse today. Besides I have all summer to take advantage of the weather and play with the 'wet cyan' process that Linda has started. What fun there will be.
