Blue Horizon No. 193104, cyanotype, 2024 copyright Douglas Stockdale –
The last couple of months have been an artistic challenge for my cyanotype printing as well as life in general. Losing a friend who appeared to be well on the way to recovery is difficult. It keeps the other set backs in one’s artistic life in perspective.
For me alternative photography processes such as printing cyanotypes has been an ongoing challenge to my patience, hopefully in a good way. Due to the fact that my ‘dim-room’ for cyanotypes really only allows me to print once per night, everything seems to move very slow compared to a digital workflow and inkjet printing in which it’s possible to create multiple pigment ink prints per hour.
Such as the image above, which is the result of four attempts to create a digital contact negative to arrive at a print that is about what I had pre-visualized as a cyanotype print. Even when I have developed what I think is a really good compensation curve for the cyanotype process, what results can be a surprise, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. As a result, the about cyanotype print required about two weeks of work. In some ways, I think I also enjoy the problems solving aspect of making cyanotypes as I continue to tweak this process.
A couple of months ago, I had decided that I really enjoyed my cyanotype prints and it was a great idea to start up-sizing my prints, which meant a larger LED UV light box. I had initially purchased an 12 x 18″ light box to print on 11 x 15″ paper (really nice 8 x 10″ cyanotype images), so next size up that fit in my studio was a 16 x 20″ LED UV lightbox (20 x 28″ light box would have been really cool, but too large for the space I have). This also meant a new 16 x 20″ contact printing frame and related supplies, such as OHP film, processing trays and of course upsizing the hot press cotton rag sheets I print on.
I now suspect that nothing comes easy in alternative photography. The new LED UV lightbox had a different pattern in how the UV lights were arranged. The OHP film available in 16 x 20″ had a different base film, more of a super-clear. The hot press cotton rag I was printing on did not come in a 16 x 20″ (or 17 x 22″) size, thus a switch to printing on Bergger Cot hot press cotton rag. All of this resulted in a do-over to determine the Dmax and compensation adjustment curve for this new combination, which with my one-print per night printing process, required almost two weeks of work as I made the various adjustments and tweaks to my process parameters.
If that was not enough, the fickle-finger-of-fate dropped by, whose name is Murphy. The manufacturer of the OHP film had coating issues and that required almost two weeks to figure out. As a result when that OHP film was temporarily unavailable, I switched back to my original OHP film which came in 17 x 22″, so I need to cut it down to size for each printing session. The Dmax exposure time with the new LED UV printer seemed to work fine with this OHP film, while I still needed to crate a new adjustment curve. Then there were the printer banding issues, which again, I resolved, but that also burned through another week of test prints. sigh.
Needless to say, the last couple of months had been a bumpy ride, which in retrospect, I was still able to move a couple of my projects forward. That’s the artistic tenacity part. Each day I try to make a little bit of progress, sometimes a bit experimental to push my creative envelop (safety zone), being a little playful while allowing myself to fail, while hopefully learning something new about myself and my artistic practice. Something akin to having serious fun.
Blue Horizon No. 193104, classic cyanotype printed on Bergger Cot 320 hot press cotton rag, 11 x 14″ image on a sheet of 16 x 20″ in an edition of five.
Make every day an Earth Day
Doug
Artist book available:
The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, 2022, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com
Singular Images 