Over the last week or so I have continued to experiment with alcohol ink and cyanotype mixed with gelatine. I’ve not yet learned what I can do but I have learned quite a lot about what doesn’t work!
I found another of Jo Howell’s blogs in which she talks about working with cyanotype on glass and thought this principle might work on the Yupo paper I have been using. In this blog, Jo discusses how she dilutes the gelatine and how much cyanotype chemical she adds, so that was my starting point. Jo said she followed the guidance for dissolving the gelatine but used less water than the suggested pint, so that it fitted into her lightproof bottle – not sure how big that was though! I diluted my gelatine up to about 1/2 pint, added the cyanotype chemicals, 25 ml of each, then the solution was allowed to cool overnight by which time it had turned into a fairly loose jelly.
My first mistake was to use this to coat the paper but when I re-read Jo’s blog, she warmed the solution up slightly so that it was in liquid form.
As you can see, the paper isn’t very well covered and once exposed, you can clearly see areas not coated at all.
I did have hope of another happy accident but that was not to be because when I washed the paper, all of the cyanotype washed off, leaving the paper as it was before any cyanotype had been applied. When I went back to Jo’s blog again, she talked about soaking the exposed paper in very cold water to set the cyanotype before washing whereas I had just ran it under the tap.
So, the next stage will be:
- Warm cyanotype/gelatine mix before coating
- Make sure paper is super clean – Jo makes the point that if it isn’t the solution will pool around the dust.
- Expose – not sure for how long. the last print was exposed for 10 minutes so I will try 20 next time.
- Maybe leave overnight to harden? I will try one with and one without
- Soak in ice cold water for 5 minutes to set gelatine
- Wash
Anne Bryson Photography 