The best laid plans...

For the first time in ages yesterday the sun really shone strong and bright here, perfect weather for cyanotypes. Now, I've been inspired of late by the wonderful work of artist Anna Mavromatis and I've been planning this day for weeks. I knew we'd have to have sun here in the Principality sooner or later so I had plant material pressed and ready for my photograms. I had paper ready and even had my little darkroom construction ready to prepare it in, but..... and you know there's going to be a but don't you.... what I had not done was check my materials . You need two chemicals to make this alchemy work and one of my packages had just hardened into some sort of gel so there was no way I was going to produce cyanotypes yesterday. I did not have a Plan B but I was itching to do something....

On the table I had a pile of fabrics that I'd been sorting through. Last week I dyed some fabrics with some plants from the garden and I'd put them with my other samples to put away. Well, as you can see I grabbed a couple of rust dyed samples and a few sage leaves from outside the workshop door. It was instant gratification stuff! I did the same then to the two bits of fabric I dyed last summer with woad I grew in the garden. I have no idea what to do with the bits and pieces but it got me started. I will probably just throw them back in the sample box!

Last week I did a couple of workshops. The first was a few hours doing monoprints and then I spent a day screen printing on Saturday. The samples from each of them were not brilliant but I do some things for reinforcing the process in my mind rather than producing good enough work and I always know I can use the prints for something else. That's what I did next. I rooted around in the cupboard and found a couple of linocuts that I did ages ago. Now linocutting is not my strongpoint by any stretch of the imagination but I printed the linocut of the leeks onto two screen print samples first. They actually didn't look too bad.

Then I found this little linocut that I did last year and had never even proof printed. So, I cut up another screen print sample and had a go at printing it, in my usual haste, messing up the registration left right and centre. I ended up with a couple that were not too badly centred on the paper but of course now I can see where I need to re-cut the lino to even it out.

By then I was just doing anything I could to occupy my mind so I spent the afternoon doing something I saw online earlier in the day. Don't worry I shall not inflict that on you as well.

I've ordered more cyanotype chemicals this morning but it's rained in torrents all day here and it is forecast to go on and on and on....... but if I get any cyanotyping done in the coming weeks I will show you my efforts. In the meantime please go over to Anna's blog to see how it should be done properly!