Viability

 Life is busy but pleasantly so. I am engrossed in lots of projects and ideas and enjoying the beautiful sunshine that Britain is having this week. After a wet start to Easter it has just got hotter and hotter and feels like we've bypassed Spring and moved straight into summer. I even saw my first Orange Tip Butterfly today, at a least a couple of weeks early, so maybe this is the portent of good weather to come?

It was the sunshine that prompted me to get up to the shed this afternoon, planning to get on with a painting project, but whilst waiting for the gesso to dry on my canvas I started to focus on the old cool box under the table. I stored some cyanotype solution in there after last summer's workshop and I started to wonder about its viability.

I mixed it at least a year ago but it has been in the dark so I thought it would be worth investigating. Naturally, the painting plan suddenly got relegated to manyana and I got the bottle of solution out of the coolbox and quickly set up a little box contraption I use to exclude the light. I coated some cartridge paper and set it to dry while I suddenly had to think of what to use in the print. I walked three feet from the door and picked the heads off some daffs and pressed them into service. As ever, my usual haphazard way of working.......

 I knew the sun was strong enough but when exposed to the light it did not go the usual dark grey colour so timing it right was difficult,  but after a hydrogen peroxide rinse I had a couple of sharp daffodil prints, picking up the folds and ridges quite well. I think these might look good as cards.

 This print of a restio shows the odd colour it went once released from the frame. I quite like the effect but went on to rinse it out and it got sharper. It is evident that the solution has lost some of its potency by the puddling on the paper above (but that could also be down to my slap dash application). The main thing is that there is still some life in the solution so long after it was made up. I find that quite exciting for future ideas.

 Of course I'm then trying to take full advantage of the hot weather while I can and had to use up all of the solution I had left, so I picked up a piece of paper that had been painted with tea and had rusty things placed on it. Now it was not a good rust print and the solution was getting decidedly weak by this point but I started to think about over printing onto rusted paper or fabric, or rusting first and then cyanotyping selectively over it. With a full strength solution and a structured plan I think some great results could be achieved.

In the coolbox I found the two solutions required to make the full solution already made up so I could mix them now and start that plan...... but I don't want to do that if this glorious weather is a bit of a blip.Better to wait until late May or June when it is more consistent. I also cyanotyped some fabric to complete the process but that did not take well so I intend to try it again with fresher stuff . It was a great afternoon just playing, with the only downside that my hands turned blue because I thought it was a weakened solution and did not put my gloves on early enough in the process. In my enthusiasm I forget the most basic of things. Still, it will wash off and fade....eventually. C'est la vie.