Cyanotype Prints
Cyanotype printing is a printing process that involves laying an object or in my case an inverted image printed onto a sheet of acetate over a sheet of paper coated in a solution containing ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate is mixed with potassium ferricyanide. When these chemicals are mixed together and painted onto a sheet of paper it becomes sensitive to any form of exposure to UV lighting, this when your image or objects come in to create a stencil of wear UV lighting has exposed parts on the paper to create the stencil/ image. After a couple hours of the print being exposed to sunlight you can rinse and or wash off the chemicals and it creates the famous "blue print" background and image, after washing the chemicals off the image is no longer expensive to exposure to UV lighting, so therefore you are left with your cyanotype print/s.
Below are images throughout the process of cyanotype printing:
These images depict the inverted images shown at the end of my previous folder printed on acetate:
Below is an image post-painting on and covering my pieces of A4 paper with a solution containing ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate is mixed with potassium ferricyanide:
After you have covered your paper in the solution you carefully align your acetate print over the top of the print, and you can either place the print in direct sunlight and or in my case I chose to place under direct artificial UV lighting, as it the condition of sunlight wasn't very bright so the rate of exposure would of been slower and within an exam time frame, I have limited time to produce certain workings.
After a couple of hours of the acetate prints and the painted solution being exposed to UV lighting it is time to observe the prints and if the colour has become slightly desaturated that is usually a sign that the images are ready. After this I then rinsed and washed the images in a tray of water in order to stop the images from exposing and limit the reaction of chemicals when interfered with lighting sources. Then after you have rinsed your images it is time to place them on a drying rack to allow the images to dry up and develop, which created these images below.
Overall, I believe that the cyanotype prints I was able to produce were fairly successful, however, as you can see in the images the printer I used to print my images onto acetate scratched some of the ink off of the acetate which is clear in the cyanotype prints, depicting the images of a bra and the baby doll. However, I think this was a good use of time with experimentation of different printing methods and processes, and getting to explore the work of Joy Gregory, and get an opportunity to have a different approach to researching my topic of women and what gender construction are still present within society today. I really enjoyed this process of print making, however, I don't wish to continue this process through as a final project as I want to be able to explore the photographic medium of portraiture and I feel this way of working reduces my chance and potential of being able to do that.
