Thursday, April 30, 2009

Cyanotype Photograms (Look what I can do!)

Stagnancy, boredom, restlessness. I think every artist I know, while whiling away hours in the studio, has gone through those awful feelings every now and then. For me, it's been happening during the last week or two. At the same time I have been thinking of all of the printmaking I used to do in college and missing it, wondering how I can integrate it into my current work. I haven't come up with all of the answers yet, but I am definitely on my way.

I find that when I am feeling artistically stagnant, the best thing to do is try a new technique, preferably in the company of friends and fellow artists. Luckily, my friend and simply amazing photographer John is just the man. Not only do we work well together and we are nearly guaranteed to have an evening of hilarity whenever we hang out, but John has a great studio space and is always experimenting with new photographic techniques. The latest one, which he was generous enough to share with me last week and with a group of us last night, is cyanotype.

Creating cyanotype prints involves coating paper with a chemical solution (click the link above for a more detailed description), covering the paper with objects, negatives, or transparencies, and exposing it to UV light. The resulting print, as you can see from the cyanotype photograms that I made above, is a gorgeous deep blue.

I am definitely having fun experimenting with this new technique! I have a little series in mind, and I think I managed to rope John in to at least one more Wednesday. It is helping me look at my work in a new way, and filling that printmaking bug that I've been trying to pin down. I'll keep you updated with new work!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I am going through the stage of discovering how better I can craft too! I love the progress you have made with Cyanotype - can't wait to see more work on it! Good luck!

http://be-a-glitzer.blogspot.com/

Amanda said...

Lea, these are so fun!! I'm now imagining some very creative magic happening with cut paper and cyanotype prints. The wheels are spinning. ;)

In other news...

I have a Kreativ Blogger award waiting for you on my blog! Someone sent one to me yesterday, and now I have the honor of passing it along to you, because your blog makes me smile. :)

http://breadandbadger.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-first-blog-award.html

LeaKarts said...

Thank you Amanda!! You are so sweet! :D

maoiliosa said...

so cool! (sorry i'm a bit behind on reading your blog entries! oopsie!)

AlternativePhotography said...

Those are very creative photograms... well done. If you want to learn more about cyanotypes, how to tone, them, how to make and use digital negatives, take a look at this book:
http://www.alternativephotography.com/books/cyanotypes.html