Blueprints for Success

Washing out the cyanotype solution in a tray under the garden tap (improvisation)

Trying out new ideas is not always a recipe for success. You can make the plans, draw up the blueprint then fall short of your goal along the journey. I admit I was full of trepidation trying out a new technique this week at my artist residency in Tootgarook, Victoria.

I had planned on creating small squares of cyanotype ‘blueprints’ or sun-prints as they are also called. I had a lovely pad of 100% cotton rag square papers and I took my square format images to Officeworks to get them made into transparencies for the sun exposures.

However I had forgotten to take the measurements of the paper to the print shop with me, so I decided to save money and put two of the negative squares onto one A4 transparency. Of course that was way smaller than the paper size. What to do?

In my journal I drew up how I thought I could capitalise on this situation. If I put the transparencies in the centre of the paper, I could create a drawn image of the Moonah trees around the borders and extend them into the centre of the paper.

I had to make a list of all the steps I needed to take in order to get the desired result. First blue-tac the paper squares onto the wall. Then project the image squares onto the paper and draw them with ink. The next step was to make a little cut-out template so I could position the transparencies evenly in the centre of the paper.

I drew the square using the template then put blue masking tape around the outside border edge. I then created a dark space in the studio to paint the cyanotype solution on. It was fun trying to work out how I could dry the papers in the dark as there was an overhead fluorescent light that come on automatically at dusk. I placed a blanket over a small table and dried the papers under it.

Then it was time to expose the images, one at a time. The exposure times were long, as winter sun in Victoria is not very strong. But they did work out, better than I had hoped. This set the scene for another grid, this time of four pieces of paper and the sky as seen through the tree canopy.

They are all still works in progress, but the technique I developed is my blueprint for success. If I hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice some paper to experiment on, if I hadn’t planned out each step and followed them one by one methodically, then I could easily have become muddled up and had a disaster.

I did allow for failures. My handmade kozo papers fell apart in the wash up, a trial of pressed seaweed made the images blurry, water seeped onto some of the coated papers and diluted the strength of the solution. But the small squares all worked out and all in all I was happy with my experiments.

Now I’m ready for next week’s new experiments, painting colour onto some of the cyanotype images. It might not work, but then again it might be a resounding success!

Masked up grid - the cyanotype solution will go inside the blue tape

Exposing cyanotype coated papers in the sun on a glass table