When the sun shines in the UK you have to make the most of it whichever way you like and for me today it was to use up the remaining half a bottle of Jacquard Cyanotype liquid for fabric and do some cyanotype printing.
Cyanotype printing on fabric takes quiet a bit of prep work – last night I had to wait till the evening and then make my studio into a dark room and paint the liquid onto the fabric (blindly in the dark) and leave it to dry while it was dark out. Before I went to bed I put the dried fabric in a black lidded plastic box ready.
Another thing I like to use is dried things I’ve foraged or found but these are all best pressed and dried in advance. I included some of my design work which I had printed onto acetate to use especially. Vintage lace, crochet and pressed leaves all work really well too.
I learnt from last time when I stood in the dark trying to assemble these ‘pictures’ to prepare them ahead of time sandwiched between two sheets of acetate. A few slid about on the journey down to the garden this morning but were easily rectified. Then I could pretty quickly lay out the fabric and then the ‘picture’ on top. The edges of the acetate do sometimes register and get printed but this isn’t a perfect past-time.
For full disclosure I did have 2 failures and both were caused by the wind gusting the acetate off the fabric into the air. This was solved by using the very heavy sheet of acetate which came in a paper cyanotype printing kit but I couldn’t use it for the larger pieces opting instead to hang around ready to pin it down if nec ! I also think a got a ‘less-blue’ result probably from it having been open for 2 years and from me eeking it out on the fabric when I painted it.
Anyhow the dog had a nice morning warming her old bones and I’ve now got a little pile of lovely fabric prints to work with.
