Sunprinting

I attended a workshop at Boston Figure Art Center, instructed by Eve Sage — you can find her on Instagram @eve.sage.art. It was an introductory workshop to an introductory workshop to cyanotype printing — a type of sun printing done with light sensitive chemicals that produce that characteristic blue tone. All sorts of materials and examples were provided to experiment with.

Preparing the paper

Finished prints

Watching others make theirs was really inspiring and gave me ideas I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

The first one was an arrangement of dried flowers.

Dried flower print

The next was inspired by an example the instructor provided — I drew a heart shape and covered it with lace.

Heart and lace print

I had seen people combining lace and other decorative elements with dried flowers and wanted to try something similar, but since I had already done dried flowers I wanted to try something different.I used a flower shaped crochet piece for the bloom, thread for the stem, and a translucent lace for decoration.

Crochet flower with lace print

The next one didn't come out right. I thought photos would print onto the paper but they didn't — maybe I can overlay some photos instead? The idea was to place two photos surrounded by decoration. There were some star and circle cutouts and while playing around with the composition I thought I could make it look like a night sky — a moon and stars.

Stars and film strips print

After that I wanted to make something like the animal prints I saw others making, which I found really creative. I initially planned to use lace as the color element and wire mesh as the hair, but my mind went elsewhere and I ended up making the lace into a crown or headpiece instead. Unfortunately the paper was small and the objects were light, so they kept moving and the piece didn't come out as I intended. I think i should have drawn the face and used objects to make textures like the heart one.

Face with lace crown print

I later experimented with making sun prints using turmeric, something I had been wanting to try for a while. I treated the paper with baking soda after printing, but unfortunately the days were cloudy and I couldn't get enough sunlight, so the print came out too dull.

Another problem was the objects I used — I wanted to use transparent objects to create some unique texture on the paper but they didn't show up. The leaves I used were also too grouped together to read clearly as a stem with individual leaves.

Setting up

Turmeric print — leaves

I wanted to try emulating a technique I saw people use in the workshop — drawing or writing with markers directly to create a print.

Portrait drawing on turmeric paper

Turmeric portrait print

And there you have it — my experience with sun printing. I plan to try the turmeric version again when I have plenty of sunlight and can plan the composition a bit more carefully.