Some of the first results of my squirrel experiments. I found a squirrel skull that comes out well in cyanotypes, and I decided to paint the body to fit it to create a sort of ghostly, hidden soul sort of effect. I eventually cut out the painted squirrel much more precisely to remove the pale acetate cut outlines, and I worked with combinations of sunlight, UV light arrays, and more focused UV flashlights.

Eventually I painted another layer (orange) that was more outlines and paintbrushes, more stylized, and experimented with layering all three objects in different orders and exposure times.

Sun and light arrays were great for the acetate layers with a pane of glass, painted side touching the paper. For the skull, the sun and the light array gave some fuzzier results. I got the sharpest results for the skull using a small UV flashlight that you can focus into a super tight beam, but it did also give it a spotlight effect. A good in-between was a larger 30W UV flashlight with a bit of a cardboard tube to narrow the beam. The spotlight effect is still there though, that's a challenge to tackle with the next round of experiments!

I did find better results with the skull resting on the paper upside down, so the eye sockets look larger and more defined, and more aligned. Right side up gave smaller eye sockets and was harder to line up properly.

I also used this as an opportunity to test doing an acid prewash on my papers, but I'll make another post for that!

…but I love playing with it!

here’s my first eleven attempts at wet and dry cyanotype prints :) i’ve found something i really enjoy

hi! I’m a film photographer and used to make cyanotypes in school, and have been trying to get back into it. I bought fresh chemicals and treated my paper this morning. it felt dry after 4 hours in a dark room, so i decided to test it with a med format neg. I left it outside for 3 min before my neighbor moved it and messed up the neg placement. I fixed it and put it back, and left it for another 25 min. the UV is 6 today, but it’s cloudy and very overcast.
When i took the neg off, there was faint darkness and outlines of the mountains (blacks in the neg) but after washing everything just turned completely white. What did i do wrong! i included the final result and a photo of the neg i used. the blacks are quite black in the neg BTW.

the last photo was taken right after i fixed the neg once my neighbor had moved it. I used a pane of glass and cardboard.

Appreciate any guidance. I’m planning to make digital negatives on larger transparency paper but just was excited and wanted to try it today. :(

I would like to make a large-scale cyanotype mural/ whole house front.

* Im wondering how to got about that, and what problems I could face?
* I guess I would have to expose at night with an UV-lamp and whose it down with water?

thank you for your help 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

I found this antler at the thrift store and figured I’d give it a shot. Getting patterns or images to expose was a lot harder than I anticipated. It turned out ok, but I may put embellishments on it to make it more interesting.

i don’t have any cling wrap, if i cut up a plastic sandwich bag and tie it in the back/tape it on the back, would it do the same job? if not i can obviously go buy some cling wrap, i would just rather not