r/cyanotypes

Today marks 4 years of her unexpected death and I wanted to commemorate her for my best friend using her favorite photo of her mother. She was a lifelong educator and such a beautiful, admirable woman.

Cyanotype on cotton mounted on canvas with archival magazine collage, film photos and acrylic paint.

Long-time lurker and first time Reddit poster here, and just really inspired by all the artists and their work in this subreddit.

This community inspired me to make my own cyanotypes, and while there’s been many failures, there’s also been a handful of successes I think I’m quite proud of! I want to share one of my favorites:

Cyanotype #33

Allium, Early afternoon sun (1:07pm) UVI: 6, sunny sky, 6 minute exposure on watercolor paper

Happy to hear your feedback!

I have been trying to realize one of my drawings for a few days now, and my experience with cyanotype is limited to just this short period.

I drew the image on pattern paper and colored it in with various colored pencils, because I was hoping for shadows and intermediate tones.

Even though the result isn't bad for a start, many of the shadings in the impression have been lost.

My question is, which pens would you recommend for achieving a finer and more detailed result?

There is still room for improvement, but overall not bad i think.
Processed these for 7 minutes.
I don’t think i washed the raven one enough, so it has greyish tint

Wildflowers on photo paper

Wondering if others have found solutions to this - when I layer images, the edge of the transparent sheets remain visible (see solid line along the top of the image). What brands of transparent sheets are others using ? Any suggestions or tips to avoid this ?

I’ve been playing around with cyanotypes for a few months now and am trying to perfect this one. Maybe I’ve looked at it too long but something just feels off? Maybe the background photo is too dark? Just need another opinion and maybe some ideas of how to improve this one.

Here’s my process:

Paper: canson xl watercolor paper

Uv lamp exposure for 7 minutes

Cold water rinse. No hydrogen peroxide.

Negative is placed ink side down with glass on top and tight

Made the collage in photoshop didn’t adjust contrast midtones etc (maybe that’s the problem?)

Any paper recommendations?

Hier ist noch eine weitere Version in Blau, damit man den Unterschied besser sehen kann. Welche gefällt euch besser?

Meiner bescheidenen Meinung nach passt Ferroblend nicht unbedingt zu jedem Motiv. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass es besonders gut zu metallischen Strukturen und technischen Motiven passt, aber zum Beispiel weniger zu Porträts.

Wie seht ihr das? Was ist eure Meinung dazu?

Pretty sure I am physically too rough on the paper still. Got lucky with the right exposure time today, but accidentally scratched both negatives in excitement so will have to reprint, boo

they were still damp and I didn’t get the results I expected, I’m going to try and dry them out completely. but I do love the colors

After exposing the print, I bleached the back of the paper under bright sunlight to eliminate the pigment color that had bled through the paper.

Spraying the top surface of the paper instead of washing in alkaline solution prevented the image from blurring.

3. Dissolving baking soda in hot water ensured a higher pH. It required less solution to shift the surface pH.

Hello,

Just starting making cyanotypes. I know I’m putting the liquid on too thick. But besides that after I let them sit for 24 hours they look darker than others. They come out ok it seems. But is the solution “bad”?

Found a trio of burned out and abandoned busses early this summer along with a nearby house and used it to test out a camera, and see if it would work for a photo shoot once it had cooled down a bit in September or October. The house was uninteresting and was torn down a few weeks later. Unfortunately, when I drove by last weekend, I discovered the busses had been towed away and the site cleaned out so no apocalypse-themed shoots, so instead of saving the reveal until then, when I was experimenting with cyanotype prints I dug out my negative scans of that trip.

Minolta α-9 (Maxxum 9, Dynax 9), Minolta AF 50mm f/1.7, Ilford HP5+ ISO400, Kodak D-76 for 13:00. 10 minute cyanotype exposure under LED UV lamp normally used for curing my resin 3D prints.

The transparency leaves an imprint or the plexiglass does. Still trying to figure out the best way to mitigate that. Any suggestions welcome. I expose outside and don't have a UV light.

I forgot to get pics from throughout the process but it looks over exposed maybe? They’re fully dried lemon slices and though some darkened a bit in the oven they’re still translucent so I was hoping for more detail. I left it outside between 15-20 mins. It’s cloudy with the sun peaking out for a bit here and there. Or is it possible I put too much of the solution on the paper?

Made them and thought some would appreciate here.

EDIT: some of you want one, so here’s my website

I’ve had so much fun playing with cyanotypes on fabric recently; this is the first piece I’m really proud of. 8x10” Jaquard pre-treated fabric, printed with pressed botanicals and found objects, and embellished with embroidery, glass beads, and fabric from my grandmother’s wedding dress.