cyanotype follow up
This is the follow up to my original post, where I tried cyanotyping for the first time.
Since then I took the plunge and bought my own solution (these ones if you are interested) so I can make my own paper. This will give me more freedom over size, plus I can use some nice heavyweight paper, as I found the pre-coated ones to be too thin and flimsy.
I’m printing these outside using sunlight, trying to keep the paper as flat as possible, using some perspex and rocks. I ended up buying an old frame in a charity shop, just for the heavy glass that came with it, as that does a great job at keeping the paper and the negative squished down.

I’ve found a couple of issues with making my own paper is applying the solution evenly, I have a sponge brush that seems to work pretty well, but at times I’ve been too eager to coat the whole paper too quickly, which results in the final print being a little patchy in places. I need to be a little more patient, and apply with a drier brush, and then recoat if needed.
This print seems to suffer badly from it, I think it’s especially noticeable because there is so much negative space. I don’t actually mind it to be honest, because it’s DIY, handmade, so these imperfections are to be expected. But not so great if you are aiming for a pristine perfect print.

My other problem has been with exposure times, I think the level of UV changes day to day, which can make it tricky when trying to expose the prints correctly, as it involves a bit of guesswork. I thought I had my timings pretty accurate, but I had one afternoon where every print seemed perfect when removing the glass, but as soon as I dunked it in my water tray, it all just seemed to wash away, leaving me with washed out cloudy image, that was just no good.

I went online to look troubleshoot, and ended up getting myself in a jumble of new worries, paper type, even the ph level of the water (which seems insane) but it turned out I was just underexposing the images. I made some new prints the following day using a longer 10 minute exposure, and that seemed to fix the issue completely.
Looking back I think some of my previous images are underexposed, but I just got away with it a little more, as the blue doesn’t look as rich as some of the newer prints.
This is a more recent one, which looks saturated and punchier.

The good thing is, the solution bottles last for ages, I have loads left for future paper batches, so printing again is no issue, I can tweak it multiple times until I get it right. Plus through trial and error I’ve found that some images are better suited for cyanotyping than others. Images with strong geometric shapes and high contrast like this leaf seem to work well.

The other advantage to making your own paper, is the potential to experiment with different papers and surfaces, I’ve been trying printing on some found papers, with mixed results so far, but will be sharing in a future blog post.

