Urban Ashes (#94853), Superior, CO, copyright 2022/2026 Douglas Stockdale –
Still a work in progress; using pigment ink transfers on top of my early cyanotype prints to increase the tonal range with some black and dark values that I was not obtaining early in my cyanotype printing. I realized last month after using a pigment ink transfer on top of a couple of cyanotype/monotype, one of which was another version of this image that I had experimented with some acrylic paint, that this might be another creative option to utilize with some of my early cyanotype prints. For this application, it is a very high-contrast black pigment transfer over a classic Prussian blue cyanotype.
Always at this stage of development; good news – bad news. Start with the bad news; my transfer/print alignment/registration process is still a work in progress. The left side of the print transfer is not bad while the transfer film slipped a little on the right side (slight amount of blurring). Nevertheless where the slight blurring caused by the out of register transfer is still not that bad and I could consider this a bit of creative serendipity, since this process does have it imperfections. Plus the very slight blurring does create some visual tension that associates with the subject, a destroyed home from an urban wild fire.
Unsure if I created this mis-alignment when combing the two (film pressure) or I just did not have it in register to begin with. So I have been spending time on the web this morning reading about other alignment/registration processes, looking for something relatively simple.
The good news, which is also a bit of creative serendipity, is that the entire pigment ink image did not fully transfer, just parts. Thus there are parts of the print that now have some deep blacks while other parts have the cyanotype darks. Provides a little more depth to the print. Cool! It’s just that I am unsure of how to duplicate the effect. I need to plan on an entire pigment ink transfer (again, not sure why it did not work), thus need to think about how I edit the contents of the transfer. Btw, I had some issues with the pigment ink transfer on my cyanotype-monotype, while I thought the ‘cure’ was to fog a coat of ColorShot matte acrylic on top of the print. Maybe the transfer issue might be related to the brand/formulation of ColorShot because I did not seem to have issues with the Liquitex matte acrylic spray.
The other aspect of this ‘good news’ is that I have parts of pigment transfer film with an image that I can use with another all-blue cyanotype pigment ink transfer (same image as I ended up using this image for much of cyanotype development printing). So I fogged another cyanotype print with the ColorShot for a printing session tomorrow morning. See what happens.
I think I sense the potential for this process combination. Also I have some ideas for print/film registration that might involve some thumb tacks. LoL
Best regards,
Doug
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