Phew, first one under my belt. Very experimental and still slightly damp so I’m not sure what it will look like when completely dry tomorrow and far less when it will be woven with another cyanotype later in the day.
So my first challenge was to bleach and tone a cyanotype print, the intention being that I will weave it with another untoned image tomorrow. with hindsight I should maybe have copied this image before toning so that I could weave a toned and untoned version of the same image but I didn’t do that.
They are the same subject matter and the same size so we’ll see how it works!
The bleaching and toning process was very experimental, there are so many variables you never really know how it will turn out, a bit like making wet cyanotype prints. I used plain chlorine bleach which is quite harsh and can break down the fibres so needs to be used sparingly. After an hour there was no change in the colour of the print so I added a little more and finally after 4 and a half hours I was happy with the result. There was still quite a lot of blue in the image which would result in a darker shade once toned but I was happy with that.
I used green tea to tone the image, 10 teabags left to stew in 250 mls boiling water for 10 minutes and then another litre of cool water added. Research tells me not to use earl grey tea as it contains quite a lot of oil which prevents the paper from absorbing the colour. The tea I used was flavoured with mint and I worried that this might cause a problem too but it doesn’t appear to have been an issue. The print was left face down in the brew for about 30 minutes before I was happy with the results. As can be seen, there is quite a pint tinge to the highlights but I’m happy with that for now. Tomorrow’s job, once the print is completely dry, is to slice each print and weave them together. Exciting stuff!
Anne Bryson Photography 