Less than positive

The video I posted last was one I found a few weeks ago. I wasn't going to do anything with it but I was struck by how many comments that were left on the seaside project pages posted by Chrissie, Cathy and myself were saying how people wanted to join in but didn't think they had the creativity needed. I guess I just wanted to somehow say that we can all do anything we want to and no-one is going to judge. After all, we are often our own harshest critics aren't we? I constantly judge what I do but I have learned to go with the flow and enjoy my experiments. This is how I am still approaching the cyanotypes and last week I gathered loads of seedheads from the garden and took a few photos. I love their structural shapes and outline.

After cropping them and sharpening the image I made a positive and a negative image of all of them. I then printed out the negative images on inkjet transparencies and now I have tried to make cyanotypes on small pieces of mountboard using them. As the substrate has to be rinsed in running water I didn't expect the mountboard to stand up to the treatment. In fact it didn't even take the solution very well. The coating puddled and dried in odd shapes on the pieces. Either it wasn't totally flat or the mountboard has its own particular coating which might have stopped the solution from permeating the surface well enough. I also have the added variable that the solution is now over ten days old and should really not be viable at all.... but I had some great results which I'm over the moon with.

I did these yesterday in between heavy rain showers so my timing went all over the place. Some are still drying out but you can see where the original solution dried in patches and stayed that way. I think I will utilise these experiments and make some small coptic stitch notebooks. I know I cannot replicate them again. The whole process keeps throwing up ideas and I will just see where they lead although that Indian Summer I was expecting seems to have evaporated. I hope I don't have to abandon my cyanotypes until next year as I want to do some work with images inspired by our bees. Over at Bee House Hives the lovely Sarah has said I can use a couple of her photos. Even if you're not interested in bees please go and take a look at her wonderful photos. They are stunning. She tells me it is snowing in Montana whereas it's just raining again here in soggy Wales. No cyanotyping today then!