Friday, June 5, 2015

Blogging for Freya: Silk & Cyan

Cyanotype silk bag, front & back
Hey there, Spiders. This has been a very busy week for me. I've been sick, flown to Boston, hunted down apartments, met my roommate, met some other Lesley graduate students, toured the campus, flown back and still been sick. So, unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to do any experiments.

Instead, I'm going to tell you about the benefits of doing cyanotype on silk. I've discussed the problems with it before, but there are some distinct pro's.

The lightweight silk habotai that I buy my scarves and bags in is sturdy, but also very permeable. That means the material stains really well with minimal application of chemistry. It isn't too absorbent, so it washes clean very quickly. A two or three minute rinse is all you need to clean all the residue from silk, unlike canvas which needs a hugely extended soak of hours to diffuse all the chemistry out. For me, that's a big bonus. I like being able to work on lots of things in a day, and the canvas really slows me down since I can only soak so many objects at once.

Because the silk is so thin, chemistry will soak right through something like a bag or garment with two layers. This is great, if you want to coat both sides at once. Not so great if you are trying to leave one side blank. If that is your goal, you must put a blocking layer between the two pieces of silk. Your second side is going to be a bit lighter if you expose it indirectly (by just letting the object/negative on the top shadow both sides at once). If you want two different, fully developed images, again, put in an opaque blocking layer. Then you can just flip the silk when you're ready to do Side B.

Silk habotai also dries very quickly. It can, in fact, dry in minutes if wrung well and blow-dried. Or you can hang it in the sun, or in front of a fan. Since cyanotype is permanent, it can be treated as normal silk. Follow all standard drying, ironing and steaming instructions. Washing is a bit different, since you will bleach cyanotype if you use standard alkaline detergents. So wash only with very mild soap, if you must use any soap at all.

I quite enjoy printing on silk. I plan to order some more tiny scarves and maybe look at trying larger things again. Especially once I get to grad school.

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