Sun Prints: Cyanotypes and how nature creates art
I discovered cyanotypes while reading The Wild Iris, a stunning collection by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Louise Glück. The cover features a cyanotype by Anna Atkins (“Iris pseudacorus,” ca. 1861), a botanist and pioneer of early photographic printing methods. Throughout the mid 1800s, Atkins employed the newly discovered cyanotype method to document the plants she studied.
Sir John Herschel was the first to discover and develop the cyanotype process; a method that uses naturally occurring minerals and salts to produce images on a treated surface such as paper or fabric. A solution of iron based compounds consisting of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate is painted onto a receptive paper or other surface and exposed in the sun. Cyanotypes produce a print in bold prussian blue and white. It’s really such a simple concept kids can even join in, gathering flowers and leaves and whatever else to create their own masterpieces.
Taking this concept a step further, I use negatives of digital photographs. Creating a negative from a digital photo file that works for cyanotypes is an exercise in trial and error (with a healthy dose of frustration thrown in occasionally). Using Photoshop to convert my photographs to negatives, I adjust levels and curves to get a thick, heavy contrast image. (Here I must say that I am grateful for tutorials I’ve found along the way!) The negatives are then printed on clear transparencies. (As I don’t have a printer, a huge shoutout to Mandy and her team at Staples Copy Center for joining this experiment and always asking to see the final prints.)
What draws me to sun printing? They are nature driven. From start to finish, cyanotypes rely on the natural world. In an alchemy of minerals and sunlight and water, art is created.
Sun Print photograms using flowers:
Sun Prints using photo negatives:
🖤
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