Once in a Blue Moon

Experimenting in style - cyanotype workshop participants showing off their creations

Many artists regularly run workshops, take commissions, or teach. I have to say emphatically that I am NOT one of those artists. I run workshops once in a blue moon (and I never take commissions). Having said that, I did run a cyanotype workshop yesterday and it was fun. Probably because it was a once in a blue moon type event.

Making cyanotypes is a really easy and accessible process and I was happy to share some experimental techniques with a small group of enthusiastic participants. It wasn’t a particularly sunny day, which meant the exposure times were quite long. That left more time for ‘mucking around’ with leaves and sticks and stones to create compositions for the printmaking in the sun process.

What I like best about workshops is the personal interaction with other people’s creativity. Each person brings something of themselves to a workshop. I learn to look at materials in new ways through their experimental processes. The results of their labours are all surprisingly different.

There are several reasons why holding workshops is a fairly rare event for me. The first is that I get incredibly tired after a couple of hours and start ‘losing’ my words. I really don’t know how teachers can stand in front of students for five or six hours, five days a week without falling over from exhaustion. Maybe it takes practice or a different kind of personality.

The second reason I don’t often give workshops is because I was a very bad student. I was always asking questions, interrupting the teacher, complaining that I couldn’t see the point of what we were learning etc etc. I’m still not a particularly patient or quiet adult learner, but teachers of adults have a whole different skill set I think, than those who only teach children.

What did I learn from yesterday’s workshop? That paper coated with cyanotype solution doesn’t have to be completely dry in order to create a good print. In fact the wet cyanotype solution makes interesting liquid marks that can add to the image composition. I also was introduced to the idea of adding confetti, leaves with holes in them and coiled wires. I have never used these as resists but they make great shapes.

The one thing I really appreciated was the opportunity to share my enthusiasm for this process with others so they could make cyanotypes themselves with a newfound confidence in technique, application and experimentation. It was a fitting inclusion to my micro-residency and pop up gallery exhibition.

A visitor to the gallery asked one of the volunteer helpers about my works on exhibition “does she only make works in blue?” I thought that was quite a funny comment but who knows, maybe I’ll start making ‘blue moon’ cyanotype prints when I get home from my residency.

At my mini residency: cyanotype experiments and blackberry stained tissue paper