sycamore photogram "wet cyanotype"

NedL · Jan 13, 2019

The tannins come out of a leaf in different ways... sometimes it leaches through the surface, which makes something like a dye, more diffuse. Sometimes it comes from inside the cells directly, which makes a dark ink, more defined. This one was a big dried sycamore leaf, and it's mostly leaching, but the leaf had a crack in it on the lower right where the inside was exposed and it made black ink there. Done in the microwave oven.

~9x10 inches, strathmore 200 CP watercolor paper:

I made this one with no heat or water. I painted acetone on the leaf, put the folded paper between two pieces of cellophane to keep it from evaporating, and then put it under a stack of books for about 5 minutes. Then I painted AFC onto it and immediately washed the extra AFC off. It was fun to see the image darken when painting on the AFC. So it was quick and got tannins out of the leaf without steam, but you can see it is diffuse...the tannin leached out more in certain places....

~5x11 inch canson marker paper:

This is postcard sized, done in microwave, zapped it multiple time then left to sit overnight...
~4.5x7 inches, strathmore 400 printmaking paper:

NedL · Jan 15, 2019

hybrid tannin-cyano-gram... painted pot ferri on after the iron-tannin print was made, let it sit out in the light, then washed.
kind of interesting: the "dye" uses up less of of the iron than the "ink", so you can see the first one has much more prussian blue than the second one.
These don't fit in my scanner, so I used default scanner settings and stitched them together, but it made the "stains" look worse than they really are.

7x13 inch strathmore 400 printmaking paper:

7x15 inch strathmore 400 printmaking paper:

bernard_L · Jan 15, 2019

Congratulations! I've been following that thread for a moment. One of the minority of threads worth reading here, among all the "black or brown camera strap?", "tell me what to bring along on my next trip?", etc...
I'm even temped to try next spring... or maybe dead leaves are more picturesque?? Already done a little lumen and a little cyanotype.
Again, congratulations and keep bringing to us nice images and accurate tech info.

NedL · Jan 15, 2019

bernard_L said:
Congratulations! I.....

Thanks for the nice words! So far it does seem like fresh or recently dried leaves work a little better, and they are getting hard to find even here in mild-winter Northern California... the last of the willow leaves are dropping right now and I'm going to pick some up before they rot on the ground. Definitely give it a try, it's a lot of fun!

removed account4 · Jan 16, 2019

hey ned, these are wonderful
i hate to sound like a capitalistoollwearing birkenstocksandsocks
but you should set up an etsy page and sell
these, or machine printed prints or something.
line of clothing, fabric with these prints on them
tapistries and being in california if you have wild
hemp around ( the industrial stuff they make fabric and paper out of ... )
seeing there's a revolution brewing in a teacup you should make all their garb
looking forward to the next !

NedL · Jan 20, 2019

The super ultra hyper buzzword BS lunar eclipse is happening right now, but it's raining here... if the clouds lighten up in the next hour I'll stick a pinhole camera out there....
So I'm goofing off instead.

Have a bunch of scraps of canson marker paper left from cutting down to 9x11, so I put them all in a stack with leaves between them and made tannigrams.
These all have images on both sides, unfortunately the images bled through so they're kinda messy, but still it is a lot of fun to unpack and see what you have.
Top right corner, the liquidambar leaf was painted with AFC. The rest were dipped in iron acetate.

Some of them look pretty neat... it's giving me more ideas. Here's the front and back of one of them:

Also discovered something interesting. Iron acetate ( I think it's mostly ferric, made from vinegar and rusty nuts & bolts ) is light sensitive. What little I've found on the internet doesn't mention iron acetate as one of the light sensitive iron salts, but it seems to be. I painted some of these with potassium ferricyanide, I let them sit most of today and nothing happened ( well, the dark orange areas become a little darker, but the areas painted w/ pot ferri stayed yellow ), but when I stuck them under my UV lamp they turned cyan color. I think you could make a cyanotype from iron acetate + pot ferri. I'm going to start combining these yellows/oranges with the blues/greens from cyanotype...

Also, when I tried washing them, all the colors you see above are fast, they don't run when they get wet.

NedL · Jan 20, 2019

jnantz said:
hey ned, these are wonderful
i hate to sound like a capitalistoollwearing birkenstocksandsocks
....... being in california if you have wild
hemp around ( the industrial stuff they make fabric and paper out of ... )
seeing there's a revolution brewing in a teacup you should make all their garb
looking forward to the next !

I can't see myself going into business selling these, but maybe I'll make some curtains or a hat or something!

NedL · Jan 21, 2019

So this is kind of messy, but shows that the colors are going to look nice. I painted cyanotype solution on the last one above.

Not sure now if it was awty or ced who told me recently to put white and black exposure cards into the scanner and use them to set white/black points, but since I started doing it a few weeks ago, it's the first time ever that the colors look right. In the past, I tried scanning or photographing the cards and tried to set white balance it in software later, and it never worked right. On my screen these colors look just like the paper in hand, so thanks ced or awty, whichever it was, I really appreciate it! ( The medium grey card, however, doesn't work right.... makes the scans look too light... )

5x9 inch canson marker paper:

NedL · Jan 22, 2019

This one is simple but I like it. Cyanotype made from photopaper negative contact print.

California Laurel ( "bay tree" ) on 9x11 inch canson marker paper:

NedL · Jan 22, 2019

By the way, the variation in amount of light and actinic light that goes through leaves is amazing. A fresh fig leaf, held up to the light, looks like it will print but just makes a white silhouette when left in the sun all day long on a cyanotype. It's not just the amount of light but color of light that gets through. Below are two 8x10 photograms on regular photo paper, both printed until about the same amount of detail was visible. Holding the leaves up to the light, they both seem to let about the same amount through. The green laurel leaves took 20 seconds under my enlarger w/ the lens wide open. The brown leaf took 4 minutes! VC paper is sensitive to green but blind to brown, so that makes sense, but the same is probably true for cyanotype or VDB since brown probably is more effective at blocking UV. It's hard to guess just by looking how long one will take to print.

winger · Jan 22, 2019

I LOVE the one in post #59! That's excellent!! The details of the veins in the leaves are so cool and the color is the best shade of blue.

NedL · Jan 23, 2019

winger said:
I LOVE the one in post #59! That's excellent!! The details of the veins in the leaves are so cool and the color is the best shade of blue.

Thanks Bethe!
Now I'm spending what little time I have for photography printing leaves, and always on the lookout for more when I walk the dog

I got off to a good start because someone here mentioned that canson marker paper works well, and I happen to have a whole bunch of it leftover.
Getting a nice dark blue doesn't seem to be a problem on this paper. I have noticed that stains can appear if you coat too thickly and it puddles -- which it tends to do because the paper gets warps and waves when it gets wet...

winger · Jan 23, 2019

NedL said:
Now I'm spending what little time I have for photography printing leaves, and always on the lookout for more when I walk the dog

This time of year is bad for leaves here (except brown ones), but I was eyeing them when I walked our mutts today. Once we have new leaves, I definitely want to try some ideas along these lines. I know mine won't be similar, so don't worry about copies!

NedL · Jan 23, 2019

You and anyone else reading this thread are more than welcome to try anything I've done. The more the merrier and every leaf is unique anyway!
Also feel free to PM or post here if you have any questions about any of them. No secret recipes here!
And everyone please feel free to post results in this thread, if you want to.

NedL · Feb 17, 2019

Blur because the stem was thick and kept the glass from pressing the leaves flat against the paper when I made the paper negative.
The paper negative looks really cool. This is a cyanotype made with it.
But I kinda like it. Toned in green tea a little, made the blues a little greener and the background a little pink... printed yesterday, had to keep bringing the frame in and out as showers went by and then the sun came out again... finally I put the whole print frame in a big flimsy plastic bag that the UPS guy had delivered a box in, and just left it out.

Camellia, 9x11" canson marker paper:

You can see where the sensitizer was on the paper because the tea toned it. I can't remember if Serdar mentioned this in a PM to me or in a post, but he noticed this before. I don't think unexposed cyanotype sensitizer really washes all the way out no matter how long you wash. I washed this for about an hour before toning it, and never let the wash water get alkaline. Maybe it could be removed with EDTA or something but I don't want to fuss with these that much, part of the reason they are fun to make is how simple everything is. In every one I've tried to tone, the highlights are not paper white, but somewhat toned by the tannins wherever the paper was sensitized.

Susan Smitha · Feb 18, 2019

These are looking nice. well done!

NedL · Feb 18, 2019

Thanks Susan Smitha

Here's a Calla Lily leaf printed yesterday, on 9x11" canson marker paper:

I added some tween to the cyanotype solution, and it did soak into the paper evenly without any "puddles", but it also gave the cyanotype soluition more access to the interior of the paper where there is an alkaline buffer. I knew it was going to be fogged a little before I started printing, it was more of a greenish color than yellow. Just goes to show that even with something as simple as cyanotype, there are lots of details and they all affect the results. I'll call it a "happy accident" because I like the way it looks, but probably won't be adding tween again, at least not with this paper.

Susan Smitha · Feb 20, 2019

NedL said:
Thanks Susan Smitha

Here's a Calla Lily leaf printed yesterday, on 9x11" canson marker paper:

View attachment 217492

I added some tween to the cyanotype solution, and it did soak into the paper evenly without any "puddles", but it also gave the cyanotype soluition more access to the interior of the paper where there is an alkaline buffer. I knew it was going to be fogged a little before I started printing, it was more of a greenish color than yellow. Just goes to show that even with something as simple as cyanotype, there are lots of details and they all affect the results. I'll call it a "happy accident" because I like the way it looks, but probably won't be adding tween again, at least not with this paper.

This is fabulous! You are an amazing artist.

NedL · Mar 8, 2020

Nothing special, just seeing if I still remember how to do this.

These are leaves from Luther Burbank's thornless blackberry ( which I grew from a cutting and is now taking over a corner under our back deck ).

Photogram of the leaves on regular photopaper ( err on the side of lighter... brightest parts of the leaves on the negative close to pure white ).. in this case it was 1m45s seconds w/ enlarging lens set at f/8. It is astounding how different the exposures can be, and how difficult it is to guess by looking: in a test 2 days ago with some clover leaves, 15s at f/11 was too much, and last year I could not get a photogram of a fig leaf after 6m at f/5.6, even though when held up to the light it looked like it would print easily.

Then printed the the paper negative onto cyanotype... I stuck the contact printing frame out in the sun at around 3PM and went for a walk... when I got home the sun was down. I got maybe 2h of sun. This is 5x7 inches.

bernard_L · Mar 8, 2020

Congratulations for exploring and obtaining such nice results. I put off testing telling myself I had to wait for spring, but I realize there are non-conifer, non-deciduous shrubs around.

NedL · Mar 22, 2020

Two photograms from yesterday, both about 7x11 inches on Canson Marker paper. The first is Namias' sepia fixed with sodium sulfite, and I think the plant is a kind of "bleeding heart" or dicentra. It was in the sun for about 1h20m. The second is a cyanotype and the plant is rose and was in the sun for about 3h. One of the things that's cool about doing these is that there aren't many "duds"... the first one would make a better negative if it was less exposed, but it still looks really cool when you hold it in hand. I think I'm going to make some more today

NedL · Mar 23, 2020

This is a vetch. There are some nice light purple colors within the big bright white areas that did not come across in the scan.

Again about 7x11 inches on Canson Marker paper and around 3 hours in the sun.

NedL · Mar 23, 2020

When I picked this I was thinking it was queen anne's lace, but when I was putting the leaves on the paper... hmm, little hairs, reddish streaks on the stems... it's poison hemlock. Still pretty and only poisonous if you eat it. In the Eastern part of the US, there is a similar looking wild parsnip which would be better to leave alone because the juice from the stems is a skin irritant.

Again Namias' sepia, 7x11 inches about 1h20m in the sun. The bronzing is more pronounced in the scan than when you hold the paper in hand. Only 4 drops of silver nitrate on this whole paper .. if this was all I did my little bottle of silver nitrate would last a long time.

winger · Mar 23, 2020

If it ever stops raining here, I should try some things like this while Nate is home from school. I love how much leaf detail you got in the blue one in #71.

NedL · Mar 23, 2020

Thanks! Not sure how old Nate is but one thing I like about cyanotype is that the chemicals are pretty innocuous and you can just pour the wash water down the sink. My wife was talking about doing it with her kindergarten class, but decided she couldn't when she heard one of the chemicals is called "potassium ferricyanide" and she might need to explain that to parents.

You can pretty much tell if you'll get the cell detail like that just by holding the leaf up to the light and looking... the leaves with bigger cells like that have a more dramatic "x-ray" look to them. The first one in #71 also has a lot of detail in the leaves but the cells are so much smaller that you have to look closely at the print to see it. I should post a picture of what I do so that you can see how simple it is... I just use a clipboard, a piece of glass from a dollar-store frame, rubber bands and a couple binder clips.... super low tech. And fun! And it's addicting because it's simple and quick and you get to hold something in your hand when you're done

sycamore photogram "wet cyanotype"

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