Out of the Blue

One of my first cyanotypes on handmade kangaroo grass paper made in Central Australia in 2019.

When did I first start dreaming in blue? I’ve loved this colour since I was a teenager and grew out of wearing pink. Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) wrote that blue is colour of heaven and I have to agree. I’ve made screen-prints using indigo blue paint, dyed paper and cloth in indigo baths but was ultimately seduced by the three fold joy of cyanotype printmaking; where photography, printmaking and the colour blue combine.

I made my first series of cyanotype prints with a fellow artist when we were both at an artist residency in Curtin Springs in Central Australia in 2019. We had gone out foraging to find obsolete pieces of farm machinery to use as stencil shapes for a series of ‘post-colonial ‘prints which I wrote about it in my blogpost from April 2019, Blueprints for Change.

“From rusted agricultural and mechanical implements a suggestion of the future materialises “out of the blue”. These obsolete washers, spanners, bedsprings, bits of metal are repurposed as narratives of our colonial past. They float on paper made from spinifex and kangaroo grass coloured by the red desert earth.”

It was several years later that cyanotype print making cropped up again in my life. In 2022 I was captivated by a cyanotype print of a swimming pool I saw on the wall at the Fish Factory artist residency in Iceland. The blue and white palette so perfectly depicted the Icelandic landscape that I ordered a cyanotype kit while there and started making my own cyanotype prints and collages.

The photos I had been taking of stones in people’s gardens were transferred onto acetate stencils which I used to create cyanotype prints from. With very little sunshine in May in Iceland, the prints often took 45 minutes or so to expose, but most turned out fine. The ones that didn’t I used for collaging, resulting in a series of artworks for my exhibition Ice Stories: Dispatches from the Arctic.

Then in 2023 I really got time to experiment while travelling in a motorhome and studying my Masters through Plymouth University via Dartington Arts School (which sadly no longer exists).

I experimented with what sort of objects and shapes worked and tried out different types of cardboard boxes to print onto. A simple grid of dandelion stems became a foray into map making. Overlaying multiple acetate transparencies became portals into mystical places. Cut out stencils became a way to put figures into my landscapes.

As I discovered more about this fascinating process, I did some research to find out about the history of cyanotype printing and wrote about my experiments in my study blog.

All of these experimental processes have led into my recent artworks made from pain relief boxes. They became the inspiration to document my recovery from knee surgery through my artist book Post-Operative (see an earlier blogpost Mapping Chaos).

At times I think that this type of artmaking has snuck up on me from ‘out of the blue’, yet on reflection I can see its steady progression as a through line of my processes. It is such a great way to include text, photographic images, stencil cutouts, multiple layering, collage and best of all the sheer surprise and unexpected outcomes that happen along the way.

I have yet to explore the effects of tannin and washing soda which await. I know already that red wine in the washing out process can deliver wonderful toning effects (through accidentally spilling red wine into the sink with the cyanotype). Anticipation of where I could go with this process keeps my art making practice alive and fresh. Who knows what will happen when I’m let loose with turmeric.

First cyanotype experiments with paracetamol boxes and drawing, 2023.

Post Operative artist book 2024 cyanotype prints and stitching.