Regrets.... I've had a few....

I get such a kick out of things that go wrong as much as I do when they go right! Sometimes the 'happy accidents' yield things you love but can never replicate. This has proved to be the case with the cyanotypes I've been experimenting with this week. Up above are three pieces of watercolour paper that I cut last week with the intention of doing the photograms with the lace doilies on. Well, they dried a bit streaky so I discarded them, finding them two days later virtually black where they had reacted with the light. I never thought I'd get an image but I exposed two of them with some leaves from the garden and the third with a transparency I'd printed out from one of my photographs. When exposed and rinsed the images were a dark blue on a marginally lighter blue background so I painted them, whilst wet, with neat bleach and I really love the effect. Will I be able to do it again....mmmm.... doubtful, but I might give it a try!

Similarly, I thought I'd try the process on fabric again and grabbed a couple of pieces of what I thought were white cotton. By now my solution has been made about 3 days and it is only supposed to have a shelf life of 24 hours so I didn't expect much. The material above was painted and left to dry and then exposed. It's not a dark blue but it's getting there whilst the piece below was painted, covered while wet with an inkjet transparency from one of my moth photos and exposed for the same period of time. The colour difference is quite marked and I have to experiment more to find out why they are different. Is it because one fabic was exposed wet and the other was dry? Or, maybe I haven't even picked cotton fabrics? The process does not work on synthetics so is my moth printed on polyester cotton and therefore paler?

Every piece I produce makes me ask more questions. It is a fascinating process and I hope I make a few more mistakes today.....