Woolly Bully!

So, as you can see, I've finished two of my woolen anthotypes. They were exposing for a long, long time. The madder anthotype was exposed for 63 days, and the turmeric-annatto mixture for 15 days. Now some of those days were rainy and cloudy. I will say that 63 days was probably excessive. I checked the madder felt several times during its two months outside and saw little change in the last month it was out there. It was probably done after 4 weeks or so.

63-day madder root exposure
printed on nuno felt.

The madder felt is actually printed on nuno felt, meaning that there is a layer of sheer cloth inside the wool. I don't think this had any effect, it's just a way to get a thicker, sturdier felt while using less wool. As I said before, the felt did a great job of absorbing the madder. This was the first substance I tested madder on that produced a true red. The final result isn't terrible, but it's also not really worth tying up a frame for a month or more. If I ever have some kind of brilliant idea that requires a bright red anthotype, I may try again. Until then, I'm going to have to say that while madder can be used successfully as an anthotype dye, the cons are that it only really works on highly absorbent fabrics and requires a month-long (or longer) exposure. Those cons outweigh the single pro: it's the only true red natural dye I've found that can be bought at reasonable price.

Unprocessed

Contrast-Enhanced

Not to be discouraged by one impractical dye, I decided to test another dye on the same process. Well, a similar process. My second felt anthotype isn't nuno-felted, it's made on pure wool. Again, I don't see any reason that would affect the final outcome. It does affect the integrity of the wool itself. I rushed through making this felt, so it's a bit patchy. I also rushed through dyeing it. I only let it soak in the dye for a few hours instead of a full day. My hope was that the fibers would hold onto the dye less fully and the fading would be more pronounced. That part seems to have worked, but the dye itself hasn't provided a strong contrast. You can see that the unmodified antho-felt hasn't got much visibility. This is actually a problem I've had in the past with pure turmeric anthotypes on paper. They're just so yellow that it's hard to see them, then they show up great when darkened slightly in Photoshop. I added annatto powder to the turmeric, hoping to avoid this, but I don't think it was enough.

Overall, the wool felt anthoype idea is cool, but I don't know that it's really practical. It's cool that it's so very do-it-yourself, with making the dye, the fabric and the print. I really like that aspect, but the final results are extremely time-consuming and not that impressive. I may do another in a while with... I dunno, maybe blue dye from red cabbage? I liked that blue. Turmeric is my most reliable anthotype dye; I know it gives fast exposures and it practically always works. The downside is the low contrast, which I didn't compensate for enough in this experiment.

Even solving the contrast, color and time problems, anthotypes on hand-made felt may simply be something I work with rarely because of the immense time and effort involved in making them work. Making the felt itself and then dyeing it properly take quite a while. Possibly at some point I'll refine my felt-making process and speed it up. Or I might just take a few days at some point to produce a bunch of felt pieces for later anthotypes. Maybe even combine it with hand making a bunch of paper.

The two substrates: handmade felt and handmade paper, remind me a lot of each other. They both bring some very interesting conceptual and textural aspects to the table, but both require a huge investment of time and materials to get a good print. They're definitely 'advanced' anthotype techniques that may be of interest if you really enjoy getting your hands wet. 

Faded Glory

As I've mentioned previously, I'm attempting to fully document various cyanotype toning processes that can be done easily at home with fairly safe chemistry. My old alternative process textbook, by Christopher James, has a great chapter on toning cyanotypes. In fact, James has made the whole cyanotype chapter available freely online. So that's very nice of him, should anyone want to investigate his notes. He doesn't provide many examples, but he does cover some toning techniques that I will not be working with. Anything that uses gallic acid, pyrogallic acid, lead acetate or nitric acid is out for me since I do not enjoy working with powdered toxins.

This article by Suzi Varin goes into some detail about her experiences with James' toning techniques. She's provided examples of all his processes, except for the two violet processes he lists. I'd love to hear from someone that actually tries the lead acetate violet-grey toning; I'm not brave enough to try that myself.

In the last post, I talked a bit (a lot) about SuperTea vs. Tannic Acid. Now I'm going to proceed with talking about the toners themselves. I'll make some more samples and examples once I get my shipment of tannic acid from B&H. Until now, SuperTea is what I've got results from.

Soaked in SuperTea, then bleached in Soda Ash

Taking a second aside, I want to reiterate something that James covers in his chapter: all the processes I've come across for toning cyanotypes involve a bleach that breaks down the pigment. Then, you're using tannic acid or gallic acid to build a new pigment. The exact color will depend on what type of bleach you used to break down the cyanotype in the first place. There are exceptions, but that's the general idea. You can stop right after the bleaching process. Mostly, this is going to get you some kind of yellow or greyish result where the cyanotype pigment is broken down.

So, let's get down to the actual effects shall we? I still have to try getting good scans for Dektol and Selenium, so those results will come later. My detergent experiments need some work, too, but I've presented preliminary notes on that.

Borax: This is my favorite bleach, and its easy to buy. 20 Mule Team Borax is the brand I find pretty commonly at grocery stores in the laundry section. I keep holding out hope that I'll be able to work out a way to preserve the violet color produced by using a borax solution on prints. So far, no. The violet remains only while the print is wet and dries out to a pale blue-lilac color. The tone is distinctly different from an unaffected cyanotype, but you'd almost need to look at them side-by-side to see it. Let your print sit in borax long enough and you'll get a yellowish-grey color. The blue won't ever fully disappear as it would in soda ash, but it will get patchy. Borax doesn't like to dilute really well, so I tend to just dump tons of the powder into water until it hits the saturation point, then filter off any remaining precipitate. This saturated borax-water can then be diluted down later, if you want. The best thing about borax, aside from the transitory violet created, is that it does great with tannic acid. Borax-bleached prints toned in tannic acid will turn a lovely maroon with hints of brown. It's really nice.

Detergent: Basic laundry detergent. Supposedly this works because it has washing soda in it, but it has distinctly different results. This one has to be carefully watched. High amounts of detergent will destroy your image in short order. You can work with 10% solutions very easily and get good results. Now, by 'good', I do not mean dramatic. Detergent is a nice way to lighten a cyanotype without introducing a massive change in tonality. It will eventually turn your print somewhat yellow, but the color effect is far less pronounced than the other bleaches.

Cyanotype in 1:50 bleach

Bleach: Ordinary household laundry bleach for this one. Yes, all the toning techniques have some kinda bleach involved somewhere. Now, its super easy to use too much bleach. I found that a 1-2% solution is more than enough. If you work much stronger than that, you're bleaching reaction will happen way, way too fast. I tried 10% and the image virtually vanished before my eyes, with almost no chance at all to remove the print and wash the bleach away. Tannic acid added to a bleached print will give you some decent browns, with a hint of red. However the result isn't as dramatic as what you can get with ammonia or soda ash or borax.

Soda Ash: Originally, I learned of soda ash as a dye fixative for textiles. However, it's also a detergent that can be used for cleaning or added to laundry. Turns out you can buy it, very cheaply, as "washing soda". No matter what you call it, sodium carbonate is a dry, white powder and a strong bleaching agent. It will turn your cyanotypes bright golden-yellow. It doesn't take much of the powder to create an effective bleach, maybe 1-2 tablespoons to a liter of water. This bleach can be used to do a blue-yellow split, and it's very pretty, but not as well balanced as bleach. Soda ash really shines when combined with tannic acid, where it creates a lovely brown or reddish black depending on your process.

Cyanotype in weak ammonia

Ammonia: When you first put your cyanotype in the ammonia, provided the ammonia mixture is strong enough, it will turn brilliant violet. This doesn't last at all. In fact, it disappears so quickly that I don't even think it could be scanned while wet. The ammonia will keep bleaching away your image unless you wash it off. Washing it off removes the purple. So, you're kinda stuck. However, after the violet color is gone your print will start to bleach normally. The bleaching is a yellow-blue split, much like bleach, but it leans more heavily towards the blue and grey end of the spectrum. Ammonia bleaching is flatter and lower contrast than bleach bleaching. When combined with tannic acid, ammonia will give you a bit more red in your browns than bleach or soda ash.


For full examples and more details on step-by-step processes, check out this section of my Flickr!

Half Dozen of the Other

My on-going attempt to create a step-by-step document of various cyanotype toning processes continues. There have been some failures and the weather for the last few weeks has decided to swing wildly between blazing sun and thunderstorms, meaning it's been quite difficult to actually make any new prints to experiment with. That and my small supply of good-quality 4x5 negatives combines to make this a rather long-term process.

Still, I've completed documentation of five different bleaching/toning processes. The title of the post mentions six because there's two variations on one of the processes showing what happens at extremes of dilution. The documents for each process are combined JPGs showing each stage, with a note next to each stage saying what solution was applied to achieve the shown result. I'll go into a bit more detail here, and maybe copy the more in-depth explanation over to Flickr later.

Oh, right! Flickr! Yes, because of the size of the files, they're being hosted on Flickr. Blogger gets mad at me when I try to post bunches of super-big files and it really isn't the best way to view them either. So, head over and check out This Collection on my Flickr for full views of the documentation.

Before we start getting into the details of each toning process, I want to take a moment and explain what a common word in the article means. "SuperTea" is what I call an easy way to get tannic acid at home without buying the chemical from a supply company. Tannins are present in all kinds of things: tea, coffee, some wines, wood, tobacco, etc. Brewing up an extremely potent mixture of black tea is just a fast, easy way to get tannic acid without buying it.

SuperTea Recipe: In 1/2 quart of water, microwave 8 bags of black tea for 10 minutes on high. Allow bags to steep for several hours. Before discarding the bags, squeeze them thoroughly to get out all that extra tannin. 

While it's fast and easy, SuperTea has downsides. Some pretty big ones. First off, all the stuff in the tea that isn't tannic acid. That stuff will stain your paper. I've had cyanotypes sitting in tannic acid for hours and come out with white highlights. Prints immersed in SuperTea are going to turn intense yellow-brown in just a few minutes. If that. I had one turn brown on me in only a few seconds when using fresh-brewed SuperTea (it works faster hot). So, that's going to reduce your contrast in the image dramatically by turning all your highlights brown. Guess what color it turns your shadows? Also brown. You see the problem. Further, because of the intense base-staining, instead of actually getting different colors you're just going to get different shades of brown. So that's kinda boring. Oh, and don't forget that if you leave iced tea sitting around outside of your fridge? It grows fungus. If you keep it in your fridge, it gets cold, cloudy and has to be warmed back up before it will work very well.

There's no doubt: buying tannic acid itself is better than using SuperTea. It stains less, it works faster and it'll probably last longer since it tends to grow less fungus. The downside to buying the acid itself is that it's not exactly cheap. Not expensive either, but not cheap. Further, most of my goal here in this blog is to document processes and solutions that you can easily (and safely) use from home. While tannic acid isn't particularly toxic, I like encouraging people to find alternative solutions. In this situation... I have to say, get the tannic acid.

Well, that was long! Know what? Imma split this up and do a whole different post on the processes themselves.

Aaarrggh!!!

Dagnambit!!! I've already made a mistake and I'm only on my first cyanotype toning test. I didn't SCAN the dry cyanotype before toning it in Borax. Immediately after immersing it in the solution, I realized what I'd done (or rather, not done) and had a mild panic. But Borax works almost instantly and the print had already changed. I have another print that looked virtually identical, but it's not the same.

Well, no use crying over spilt milk. I'll have to get more paper coated tonight (I coat in the evenings, when there's no sunlight around) and make some exposures tomorrow to get extra copies of the image. I have three un-altered prints left to work on, so I'll be continuing the tests. Some additional research on toning cyanotypes with easy-to-find and safe-to-use chemistry has added some more tests to my list. Notes now include how many scans I plan to make, so the process is fully documented.

• Ammonia Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Borax Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• SuperTea Toning – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Ammonia + SuperTea – 3 Scans: Original, Ammonia-Only, Ammonia+SuperTea
• Borax + SuperTea – 3 Scans: Original, Borax-Only, Borax+SuperTea
• Selenium Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Dektol Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Dektol+SuperTea – 3 Scans: Original, Dektol-Only, Dektol+SuperTea
• Household Bleach Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Laundry Detergent Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After
• Lysol Spray Bleaching – 2 Scans: Before and After

Originally I planned to compare all these results to a single untoned image, but I realized that would be a terrible control group. Because I use the sun to print instead of a UV exposure table, my prints are all slightly (or significantly) different from each other. As I noted earlier, even four prints all made for 50 minutes outside on the same day did not match perfectly. Two are much lighter than the others and I have no explanation as to why, other than clouds potentially blocking some light during their exposure.

This new plan should be much more rigorous and provide far better documentation of the effects of different bleaching and toning agents. I'll have to make a stop by the Light Factory to do the Selenium and Dektol processes, and a stop at the grocery store to pick up some Ammonia. 

When I post my final results and scans, I'll include notes on the dilutions and exact steps I'm using for each toning process. 

Woolgathering pt.2

My previous attempt at an anthotype on felted wool is still outside baking away in the scoring Southern sun. It's been out there for 48 days now. I checked it a while back, but the condition remains basically the same. At 60 days I'm going to pull it and give up. Two months is more than enough time for any reasonable exposure. Anything past that falls into "unreasonable" territory and just gets written off. We'll see what it looks like by then.

Still, I went into that experiment knowing that madder root was a fairly strong textiles dye and it had good notes about its light-fastness and resistance to fading. I've confirmed in previous paper experiments that even extended exposures with madder root don't give great contrast. So whatever the failings of madder root on woolen felt, I don't think they necessarily invalidate the idea of felt. I like the concept behind it: making the substrate myself from raw fibers, dyeing them myself with my own pigments and then performing the exposure myself and doing any post-processing work necessary. So all that is pretty cool.

Today I started a new felt anthotype, this one dyed with turmeric and annatto powder (2:1 ratio, diluted in ~500 ml of alcohol) which I know to be a fast-exposing mixture. I also didn't let the felt soak in the dye as long. It still has a nice, strong yellow-gold color, but it isn't fully saturated the way the madder felt was. I left the madder felt to soak for two days, this felt only soaked for about two or three hours. So, I'm hoping some portions of the felt might bleach away totally and leave me a nice strong image. I don't expect a lot of detail in a felt exposure, but we'll see what we get! I'll be checking it once a week. I'm hoping to have results in 2-3 weeks, but I'll go for up to a month if I need to.

Toning a Six-Pack

Man, it'd be nice if the title of this post wasn't just a bad pun. Oh well. Actually, instead of getting bitchin' abs what I'm doing today is working on some cyanotypes. I'll be teaching a workshop on alternative processes at the Light Factory (check 'em out!) in the near future and it's got me wanting some examples of my own for cyanotype toning.

Yes, there are dozens of places online you can go to get good examples of cyanotypes being toned. I just want my own results because in the past when I've toned cyanotypes (and while at ECU I did every toning technique I could wrangle chemistry for) I haven't made side-by-side comparisons and now I really regret that since I no longer have easy, free access to bunches of random types of chemistry. My boss isn't big on spending money so that I can laugh maniacally to myself while wearing goggles, rubber gloves and a big black apron.

I just finished making four exposures, each 50 minutes long, of the same negative. Two of the exposures are already lighter than the others. Clouds, I'm guessing, since I do my cyanotypes outside in sunlight. I'm going to be doing examples of:

• Ammonia Bleaching
• Borax Bleaching
• SuperTea (Tannic Acid) Toning
• Ammonia + SuperTea
• Borax + SuperTea
• Un-toned
• Selenium Bleaching
• Dektol Toning

It'll take a few days to get all the results, since it's best to allow cyanotypes to fully dry (at least overnight) before toning them and best to let them dry again fully before scanning the images to avoid distortion from dry-down tonal shifts. 

I wish I had some pure Tannic Acid laying around, but it's kinda pricey. I might look at buying some, along with some soda ash, after the summer. Summer's tight on a budget when you're a teacher.

Update: Exotic Experiments

In my last post, 34 days ago, I talked about two on-going experiments and one completed experiment. The handmade paper experiment is finished and until I find a cheap blender to make paper with again, it'll stay that way. I really should hit the Salvation Army or something, shouldn't I? I need to anyway, because I've got a bunch of frozen fruit in the freezer that might eventually just turn into colored ice.

The other two experiments, however, were just getting started. I have one-month-later results now, one encouraging and the other... well, sorta encouraging, but far less so.

Working With Wood!
This is the less encouraging result. I used a slice of cedar for my experiment, one that had been cut directly from the trunk of the now-dead tree with a chainsaw. That meant the surface was rough and bumpy, with burs and bits of bark sticking up around the edges. So solid contact with the surface was nearly impossible and as I inspected the tree a few times, I found there was some kind of image being made, but it was so blurry and indistinct I just kept letting it go longer. Finally a good hard rain hit and appears to have washed away most of the pigment I applied to the wood. I can still see the original image, but attempts to photograph or scan it didn't turn much up because the image is so faint and really only visible if you know exactly where to look.

I'm not abandoning the idea of anthotypes on wood, because I think it's a cool idea. However, I will be using a rotary saw to cut the slices of wood next time (muuuuuch smoother cuts) and maybe even sand the front surface to a satin finish before applying the pigment. I'm also going to try hickory wood instead of cedar wood, because the dye will show up better on the hickory. The tree that was cut down for this wasn't old enough or big enough to have distinctly colored heartwood, so the whole thing is a pale color from bark to core. I'll do a side-by-side comparison once I work up the energy to clean off the table saw and work out a good way to sand the faces smooth without removing my fingertips.

Woolen Wonders!
My other on-going experiment was hand-felted wool dyed in madder extract. Well, it's been sitting inside on a well-lit table for about 2 weeks and then I moved it outside into the weather for 2 more. It's still there, though I do bring it in during really nasty storms. So far the fabric isn't getting moldy, though the particle board it sits on sure is starting to turn interesting colors.

The image itself is present, though currently not very strong. Madder has a good reputation as a long-lasting, light-resistant fabric dye. Even without a mordant involved, it's probably going to take a long, long time to get a decent amount of contrast. I plan to try this experiment again with a faster-fading pigment like red cabbage, turmeric or sandalwood.