After six weeks I took the tapes from my hand this week as the fracture in my little finger is finally healed, but it is still swollen and I am unable to bend it much. Thinking that activity is the best medicine I looked at my list of 'things to try' that I jot down when the ideas come to me and set about trying to encourage my hand to return to normal duty.
I have become involved in trying out another alternative photographic technique this week (more later!) and whenever I go down this road my mind goes back to cyanotypes, the technique that started it all for me. Despite having new chemicals I still have lots of the solution that I made up for a workshop nearly three years ago and every time I say I won't use it again, I have to push it and see if there is anything left to it.
I have cyanotyped on top of rusted paper before and thought I'd try it on fabric. The piece I chose is quite old and the rust marks were made with fabric laid out on bubble wrap and then rusted tools laid out on top, so it has a definite right side and wrong side as the bubble wrap clearly left an impression. I decided I'd make the wrong side, the right side,for this experiment and I soaked the fabric with the cyanotype solution. Interestingly the rust resisted the solution and it just sat on the top. I exposed it for about 15 minutes and the resist is clear by the fact that the rear of the fabric (above) is much paler than the front.
Here on the front I put the acetate that I used for my screen print trying to see if the rust worked with the beetles.
The results were great and now I am thinking about adding a gum arabic transfer on top of the print. Time will tell. In the meantime while I was waiting for the fabric to expose I found a pile of material that I'd either cyanotyped or indigo dyed many moons ago. I had started to make some patchwork pieces to use them up and obviously forgotten all about them. Now I've brought them back to the house and I started doing some more last night. Keeps the hands moving and is quite calming. Just love those blues but wishing for a bit more sunshine to play with rust and cyanotype again!
2 comments:
Beautiful Lesley! Just love those blues with the rust and the beetles. No wonder you were happy with the results. Look forward to seeing the finished patchwork.
Oh wow - weren't you rewarded richly for your trying of this and that and for never giving up on your cyanotype solution! Love how the beetles are playing on the fabric with all the other marks - and how intriguing that the rust stayed on top. I think rust and cyanotype are one of the world's best combos - so keep on going I say!
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