I have been very busy over the last couple of weeks with work and preparations for Christmas, hence the lack of any posts. Saying that, I have managed to spend some time on customising my cyanotype setup. I really didn't enjoy the results I was getting, with very variable contrast and limited tonal range.
I therefore decided to create a customised curve and find a perfect blocking colour for my combination of printer, inks and transparencies. I am now much more satisfied with the results, which will follow shortly.
Here is my curve:

… and my colour (ff0d0d):

… and finally,  this is how my digital negative looks like:

The setup was really straight forward, just a little time consuming. All instructions can be found here:

Digital Negative Setup

I have been experimenting a lot with my A6 testers and certainly learning a great deal. Lesson of today - do not fix cyanotypes in a bath with hydrogen peroxide! The prints wash away!

Here is my favourite tester so far - double coated with 5 inch hake brush, exposed for 10 min in my UV box, fixed and washed in plain water - Marseille. The quality of the scan is not the best, unfortunately the image lost its sharpness completely.

sunday reflections...

Well… I have done a set of Cyanotypes this morning only to find that they are all heavily underexposed! I think my test piece yesterday didn't return the correct results, as my paper was prepared  in a different way. I actually managed to save one photograph by including some vinegar in my first wash. It is still very light, but most of the details were saved. I will provide a pic when it's completely dry.
As it is a Monday Bank Holiday tomorrow in Alderney (meaning a day off for me), I will be exposing more tomorrow morning. I will coat my papers tonight and do another exposure test piece in the morning before I carry on with actual photographs. I recon I am looking more at an exposure of around 9 to 10 min.

(380)

I have finally managed to do my exposure test piece. I had real issues with my amber bottles. The opening was very small and therefore I struggled to mixup my chemicals and later could not get them out of the bottles! A very messy evening indeed. I have decided to order amber jars instead and for the time being I am using a couple of old medicine bottles I found kicking about.
Regarding my ultimate exposure then. I have tested a sheet of Fabriano Artistico, 100% Cotton, Grana Satina (300g/m2) under 4x 18W backlight blue bulbs at about 30 cm. My test piece displayed 7 min, which is a fantastic result. None of this 30-90 min varied exposure nonsense, I will be actually able to create a new piece every 7 minutes (should I wish to). Life is too short to be waisting time on natural resources!

I have to admit, I was very disappointed with the quality of my coating, it was very patchy and rough, not to mention, the shade of my blue was very light. Although, I did speed up the drying process with a hairdryer and I know this may create some random effects.  For my first image test pieces tomorrow I prepared 3x A6 and 1x A3 sheet, I actually coated them with a double coat (2/3 min between the coats) and I am letting them dry overnight. They were coated with a 5 inch Hake Brush, firstly immersed in water. I will post the results tomorrow…

The unit is in! I have decided to move myself into the cupboard under the stairs to create some magic (just like the boy with a scar shaped like a lightning bolt). The large cupboard is located in the spare bedroom downstairs and it is very close to the bath, where I can comfortably wash my prints. I was thinking of perhaps locating myself in the utility room, but I did worry a little about the dust getting into my wet prints. I will be preparing solutions tomorrow evening and testing the ultimate exposure time of my unit. I will post an update when I have some more info. Below a few of pics of my UV box.

I thought my first post on this blog should be about my current venture. I have decided to take a few months off my BA course and in the meantime I am hoping to learn 19th Century printing techniques. I am starting with Cyanotypes, aiming to get going this weekend. I have received almost all of my necessary equipment (I do live in the Channel Islands, so everything does take extra time to arrive) and my clever boyfriend is just finalising my very own UV exposure box. I am starting to get a grip with how to produce the perfect Cyanotype negative. Here is a very helpful little video.

More soon...