Cyanotype - The Project

About the Cyanotype Project

Tony

Alright, this is Tony. I'm sitting here with Debbie, and today we are working with a technique called Cyanotype. It's a way of letting the sun create images as it passes through whatever you put on the paper, whether it's a plant or a thread or whatever. 

Debbie

There is a chemical. 

Tony

Right. There's a chemical that we treat the paper with first and then that makes it light sensitive. And so then we can put flowers and leaves on it or objects, jewelry, right? And then also we can then put paprika and salt and... 

Debbie

And Tumeric, different things to create some color in it, because the basic denseness of the color, once it goes through the process, is blue. 

Tony

Right. And we also put vinegar. We spray vinegar on it, and the vinegar kind of lightens the image a little bit. 

Debbie

It seems like it lightens it, yeah. 

Tony

And the turmeric, that gives it a kind of brownish or yellowish. 

Debbie

The yellowish is the mustard. The turmeric is kind of an orangish-brownish, but the cayenne pepper gives it a little bit of a reddish burnt orange, I think. 

Tony

Yeah, you know what? I think I'll have to do a test next time where I might not put any objects on it. I might just do a strip that has turmeric, a strip that has the mustard. Oh, we should do that. 

Debbie

Oh, we should do that. 

Tony

And so we can see what those colors turn out to be. Yeah, that would be good to do so we would know. 

Debbie

Because kind of what happens is that when you use all the same things, you have all of these prints that are a lot of the same colors, even though they have different things or images on them. 

Tony

Yes.

Debbie

We even talked about that when it dries, we could even go in and paint with a paintbrush, kind of recreate. 

Tony

Right. 

Debbie

What's on there with different kinds of paints even you know paints that are really thick like oil paints to create more texture to it but our plan is to get enough of these created probably eight of them eight to ten of them we'll frame them and then have a wall of this art but we need to have enough difference and color so that the whole wall doesn't look the same.

Tony

Right. And over time, you know, we'll build a collection and we'll just pick out the best ones that work, you know, for for whatever we do. 

Debbie

Yeah. 

Tony

You know, maybe it's for the wall, maybe there's six of them that create, that make just a bigger print, you know, to be framed or whatever. 

Debbie

And that's our next project is the real big, like the 16 by 11 or whatever.  

Tony

We'll work on that. 

And, you know, I think since this is all new to us, I've never seen this. And I've been in art for a long time with different classes and, you know, nowhere near, I wouldn't call myself a professional artist. But I've never seen this before, this technique. And I saw it online and the product is really inexpensive. 

Debbie

Something to do together. 

Tony

Yeah, it's actually the things you need to wash the prints and make the prints, that's more expensive than the product is, you know, because you need little trays so you can wash the prints in water and then in a water bath and then in a water bath with peroxide.

To get the blues to really come out nice. And the blues, when the blues come out, they really come out, don't they? 

Debbie

Yeah, maybe we try less peroxide and more peroxide, see what happens. Because this last one that we did, we pulled it out sooner. As soon as we saw it changing and bringing up the browns and the oranges, we pulled it out. 

So, yeah, it's fun. It's fun to create something that you like enough to put on your wall and add to your art collection. I'm ready for a new wall of art. I love that picture we have in there, but I'm kind of ready to replace it. 

Tony

So that's our first attempt together with cyanotype. And we've learned a lot just by our first time. Every time we do it, we're going to learn something new. And like we do this test strip next time, that'll be really helpful to know. 

Debbie

Yeah, and I think that's something each time we do this, now tomorrow we're going to have another take on it, and that we do a test of something. 

What would we like to, what color would we like to work with? Do we want to try a different kind of, oh, we got that spirulina, the green spirulina powder, we could try that. 

Tony

Where's that? 

Debbie

The thing that spilled yesterday when you went to get the spices. 

Tony

Oh. 

Debbie

You said there's green all over now we could we could try that on there too. 

Tony

We could. 

Debbie

And rubbing it and different things. 

Tony

And. 

Debbie

But each time that we do it, let's... break the date down, what we did and what we experimented with. 

Tony

Keep a little journal each of us keep a journal and because we're we both you know being two separate people we have a journal different and we have a different take on what we see.

Debbie

It's a journal. 

Tony

Happening and so it's good for us to keep a keep a journal on what we what we're doing.

Debbie

Yeah. This is kind of like journaling. 

Tony

It just makes it kind of like that. Anyway, we'll just wrap this up. I just wanted to kind of memorialize our first attempt at some artwork here together. 

Debbie

I'd rather it be a celebration of life. 

Tony

Let's just bury it right now. 

Debbie

Right. Ciao. 

Tony

l'll just set it on fire. All right. 

Debbie

Comedy team here. 

Tony

That's it. I'm losing my voice anyway. All right. That was it. That's Debbie and Tony. 

Debbie

On what is the date? 

Tony

Today is the 8th, I think, July 8th, 2024. 

Agnes, you got anything to say? 

Debbie

Ugh. 

Tony

Gross she's drooling chewing on her thing there all right that's it.

Debbie

Sayonara.