I’ve been making the book cloth for the second book. This time I lino printed onto a sheer fabric and a plain cotton.
I need to sharpen my cutting tools – there was slip on the left side. I’ll be able to cover it up with the mask for the title block.
Overprinting on paper
Print on sheer fabric
Print on cotton fabric
Fabrics bonded together and backed with mulberry paper and addition of title.
For the end papers I asked my husband and daughter to draw some more outlines for me to fill. I’d been experimenting with not using straight lines.
I then redid the cyantotype for the remake of volume I. Whilst I was waiting for it to develop, I scrunched a piece of fabric up and left it outside. I was pleasantly surprised by the result.
Whilst I’ve been contemplating the book cloth that I might make for the second volume of the book, I cyanotyped an image onto some sheer fabric. Cyanotyping onto fabric is something that I’ve been attracted to and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, over the last couple of years. As early as the Interim Show I had visions of long billowing swathes of fabric.
But what caught my attention was the effect when I held it in front of a mirror, almost like the effect of the 3D printed images you get on postcards and bookmarks. I’ve still got a sheet of mirrored acrylic from my ‘A Die and A Log’ and I thought it would be interesting to experiment with layering images over each other on top of a mirrored surface. I toned the image with coffee to see what it would like other than in blue. I also wondered about using a different process – solar plate printing is something that’s been on my radar for a while, but I think that it can be quite tricky and it’s probably something best learnt in a workshop setting – again something to think about for the future. Another option would be a direct image transfer. I’m going to give it some further thought and have a play to see if it has legs as an idea.
It’s impossible for a photo to convey what the eye can see, and also I may need a better image.You can just about make out the reflection of the second head.
Today I was at the library in Winchester working on reformatting my blog so that I can make it into a book, whilst my daughter did some revision. The library, recently rebranded as The Arc, has lots going on from talks, plays, life drawing classes as well as a small gallery. The exhibition on at the moment is Patterns of Power by Yinka Shonibare RA. Shonibare explores cultural identity and colonialism. He uses African fabrics in his work. African wax prints were introduced to Africa by the Dutch who took inspiration from the Batik designs of Indonesia, which at that time was a Dutch colony.
It was a riot of colour from screen prints, sculpture to woodblock and collage.
No threads, apart from the woven kind, but I found the collage and his use of fabric particularly interesting.
After my disaster trying to do my own, I managed to source some pre-treated fabric and have another go. The result is quite good, but the clingfilm effect suggests that the fabric is creased which irks me somewhere deep inside. Also, I don’t think that I rinsed it thoroughly as some hydrogen peroxide seems to have discoloured the fabric in places. I’m not sure how I might use fabric based cyanotypes yet – I need to think about it, and look for some inspiration.
In the meantime, I’ve been experimenting with adding in sections of the negative print. I got this idea from these works by a visual artist and photographer from Luxembourg, Jean Bettingen who is interested in the constructs of identity, memory and self-representation. I also like his use of text to accompany the images. I’m guessing that he has overlaid the transparency over the top of the cyanotype.
I didn’t want to cut up my negative transparency just yet, so I printed it out and tore off a section. I think that it adds some extra interest, and I particularly like the way in which it’s not obvious which is on top, the cyanotype or the negative. It’s actually the print of the negative which is just lying loose on top of the cyanotype, but it gives a sense of distant space behind it. I tried placing the transparency on top of the print to see what that would look like and I’m intrigued by the effect, so when I’m feeling a little less precious about the transparency I’ll chop it up.
I also came across a German artist called Katja Liebmann, whose work records the energy, isolation and alienation of urban life.
The water droplets on the first image reminded me of a photo I took out of my bedroom window on New Year’s Day this year. I hoped to myself that it wasn’t a taste of things to come.
I really like this image. It’s only A4. I’m going to try and do it as a triptych, like Liebman’s first image.
Last summer I became obsessed with cyanotypes. Then there was plenty of sun. There was some sun the other day, but not much since, so I decided to make myself an exposure unit using my Speedball UV lamp and following instructions on Handprinted. I do love a bit of DIY; there’s something very satisfying about making do with something handmade which didn’t cost a fortune to buy, or require some fancy kit, or having to go to a specialist location.
I used an old printer box which was large enough to take A3 sheets, cut out a hole for the lamp to sit in, and then lined it with aluminium foil.
I selected a few photographs to experiment with; some from the family photos which I’ve been sorting out, and others which I have collected on my phone as inspirational resources, as well as some images from the experiments earlier on in this blog. I converted them all to black and white and then inverted them in Photoshop, printing them off on transparencies. I had to dust off my old printer to do this as I wasn’t sure how to do it on my husband’s printer. This took a while because between each print I had to perform a ritual of pressing certain buttons in a certain order in order to fool the printer into thinking that I was using genuine HP ink cartridges, which I wasn’t. The things you can learn on YouTube.
Ironically, the sun came out, so I did a mix of au naturel and my DIY unit.
Me
The first two prints were made using the unit, the first being over- exposed at 20 minutes, the second being just about right at 15 minutes. The last two prints I did outside in the sun, which was a bit more hit and miss because the strength of the sun was not constant as it kept disappearing behind some cloud cover. However, I do really like the effect of the visible strokes which I left when applying the solution to the paper, which was A4 300g/m2 hot pressed watercolour paper. The markings give the effect of a moving, flickering , transitory image – there, but not quite there. I put two images on the same negative transparency because I wanted to create a number of smaller images to experiment with. However, the suggestion that the images are on a roll of film is really interesting.
My mother & my brother – capturing a connection and a perfect expression of motherhood
It’s been really difficult getting some of the old photographs out of the albums; they are the sort which have sticky pages on which you position the photos, and then put a transparent film over the top. Over the years the adhesive has seized up and practically bonded to the back of the photos. I’ve tried all sorts including gentle heat, dental floss and a bendy, very sharp filleting knife.
This one of my mother and brother is a favourite, but sustained a small tear on the right. I am pleased with both images – the first one was done outside and the second in the unit, which seems to have more of a Prussian Blue hue to it although I’m not sure that there’s any rhyme or reason as to the differentiation in the blues – but I really like the movement in the second one, again giving the impression of a fleeting moment. I think that the solid areas at the top and bottom add to it, suggesting a frame from a film of a moving image.
This is a photo of the statue which sits at the bottom of my mother’s garden next to her makeshift pond made out of an old washing-up bowl. I always used to wander around the garden when I visited, stopping at the pond to see if there were any frogs around. I do like a frog – my grandmother on my father’s side used to have a rockery, and I used to spend most of my visits looking for, and trying to catch frogs. That, and hanging out in her shed and greenhouse with the tomato plants – I love the smell of tomatoes; it takes me right back.
The problem with a cyanotype is that if you leave it too long, you over-expose it, and whilst you get deep blues you lose the midtones, which is what I thought I had done with the first one, so I exposed the second one for less, but it turned out to be under-exposed – even putting it in a hydrogen peroxide bath didn’t help. Both were done outside; perhaps I should have done a straight 15 mins in the unit, but where’s the jeopardy in that?
This is a photo that I took looking up into the branches of the three trees that I like. The negative image is also really interesting, and I might do something with that at a later date. The image (last photo) is underexposed again, but has a feeling of being removed, almost as if I’m looking at it through my window (which incidentally does need a good clean). I wanted to try fabric, but could only find some thin cotton lawn. I was so disappointed – it turned out terribly. I had visions of being able to create long, flowing, billowing, wispy cyanotypes, but ended up with the image above. You can just about make out the branches.
I will need to think about this a bit more. My first thoughts are that maybe there was a coating on the fabric, so I’ve washed it; maybe the image was too detailed, but I’ve seen quite detailed images on fabric; that the structure of the fabric is not robust enough – you can get pretreated fabric which is like a sateen so I could try that; or maybe there wasn’t enough contact between the fabric and the negative. I need to take some time to reflect, and try again.
The images above were from my experiment with ink in Blot II , and from A State of Flow II . It was a useful exercise in that it confirmed to me that not everything works as a cyanotype – I much prefer the original images, particularly the ink one, as the edges between areas of flooding and blots are much more defined, and there is more of a delicacy about them. The contrast between the blue and the black ink also adds interest which is lost in the cyanotype.
So, on reflection a really useful and enjoyable exercise. The thing that I really enjoy about this process is the anticipation, and then the slow reveal as you rinse off the solution to see an image slowly emerge, or not, as the case maybe. Doing it outside as opposed to in the controlled environment of the unit adds a degree of extra excitement, but equally there is the risk of crushing disappointment when it doesn’t quite work out.
Moving forwards, I was intending to experiment with toning some of the smaller images of me with tea, coffee, wine etc, but I actually like the last couple as they are, so I will keep them as finished. I’m thinking about how I could use multiple exposures to create layers, and also thinking about manipulating the source image a bit more in Photoshop and printing from the original image rather than reversing etc. I’m not sure whether I’ll get straight to it, or do something else in the meantime – sometimes I go hell for leather with something and then exhaust it, or myself, or become disenchanted with it. I don’t want to get too far down a rabbit hole, so maybe I should leave a bit of space before going back to it, to allow for some more subconscious reflection. I suppose the clue was in the opening sentence: “Last summer I became obsessed with cyanotypes”, and I haven’t done it since.
Kate McCalmont-Woods 