Blogging for the Baron: Paper Jewels

Tracing out sizes for parchment cyanotype blanks

I've been out of it, Spiders. Since Christmas, I have entirely lost track of time. My dog became increasingly ill after some surgery and had to be put to sleep to keep him comfortable. I came down with one of the nastiest colds I ever remember, right about the same time. This cough syrup is messing me up worse than I figured. I even missed the Folded Paper Project for the first time. Basically, I've just been all kinds of messed up.

Still, there has been some progress. I've completed two more of my cyanotype parchment jewelry pieces: a ring and a pendant.

For this week's update, I'm going to go through the process step-by-step. It'll be fun! Trust me!

The first step is the "negative" which, in this case, is made by sticking a small leaf onto a piece of clear packing tape. I use the tape because it works great for when I'm dealing with bones (which are anything but flat) or felt, or anything else that doesn't lend itself to simple contact-printing under glass. When dealing with very small leaves and plants, it's also handy to keep them in place and keep track of them. It lets me arrange roots, small leaflets and even multiple tiny leaves easily as well. So, stick all your plant material onto the packing tape. For longer shelf life of your negatives, you can double-layer the tape, stick-to-stick, so that they're 'sealed'. I don't do this, because I'm alright discarding the negatives after a few uses. I'd rather find new material than keep using the same leaves over and over. Still, it's an option. If you don't seal the tape-negative somehow, it will accumulate dust, debris and gunk.

Next, stick or place your tape-negative onto your coated parchment. I've discussed the actual process of coating in some detail, so I won't go into it here. You could, in theory, use another sturdy material to make similar pieces. Heavy paper, or even stiff cloth could be glued down and covered with a protective layer. I use the parchment because, well, it's kind of my thing, ya know, Spiders? Dead stuff, necrography, etc. This last bit is very important: do not trim down the material yet. You want to leave extra space around the final border of your print so that you can trim it to fit exactly into whatever object you're going to be placing it in. Parchment and paper both deform and shrink a bit when soaked, so be mindful. Do all your trimming and sizing at the end.

Once you've got the tape-negative in place on your material, place it in a frame. I actually have a nice itty-bitty 4x5 contact frame that I'm using for this, but you can use any of the jury-rigged contact frames that I've demonstrated before, or just a picture frame. Whatever works! Then leave the frame out in sunlight for a complete exposure. I'm extremely lax with this. Due to the weak sunlight in the winter months, I tend to set my exposures out the night before and collect them in the afternoon. That gives them a good 6 or 8 hours of exposure. When you're just doing photograms, its almost impossible to over-expose. If you were trying to print image negatives (which is an option!) then you'd want to go with a shorter, more controlled exposure.

Cyanotype Parchment Pendant

After the exposure is done, just remove the tape-negative and coated material from the frame. Unstick the tape negative, if necessary, and drop your prints in the wash. For me, considering the size, I don't really wash the prints. I let them soak in a Dixie cup full of water for a few hours. They're done within 2-3 hours, tops.

The nice thing about these prints being so small is that it's fairly feasible to speed up the drying process for them with a hair dryer. Keeping them from flying all across the room while doing so? That's a bit harder. I stick 'em in place with a push-pin driven through one corner (which will get cut off anyway). At this point, you're really done with the photography portion of the exercise.

Cyanotype Parchment Ring

Now all you need to do is trim off the excess material, getting down to a size that fits exactly into your setting. Of all the steps, I find this the most annoying, especially for rounded shapes. It drives me nuts, but some of y'all may have really awesome ideas for cutting down on the annoyance. Lemme know if you do! I recommend using paper templates to ensure you don't over-trim your finished prints. That's sad when it happens, because you can't un-snip a cut print.

I recommend a silicone epoxy like E6000 for glueing parchment to metal, but if you decided to go with paper, cloth or some other material, use whatever bonds best. E6000 is pretty great overall, but it can be quite messy, fume-y and a little toxic. Use with care.

That's really it. You just make your tiny cyanotype, cut it to fit the jewelry object, glue it in place, and you're done. You can go further, with things like fixing a glass bezel in place as a protective layer, or pouring resin on top to seal things up, but I'm just starting experiments with that. They're totally optional. Parchment is a very sturdy material, and the cyanotype process is extremely archival. Items made this way, even without a protective coating, should last for decades.

Have fun, my Spiders!