Inspired by Viewfinder Laura Yurs, I’ve been playing with cyanotypes. I ordered chemicals from an Etsy shop and have been using them to coat watercolor paper in my basement (more like crawl space). The chemicals don’t react to regular lightbulbs but need to be shielded from UV light, such as the sun, until ready to develop.

I’m sharing my first attempts, flaws and all.

First I tried creating some photograms with wildflowers and seeds from my yard.

My results:

Then I tried making negatives out of the photos I’d taken of the same wildflowers and printing from those.

I had extra space on a transparency for another negative so I tried printing a photo I took in NYC last weekend.

I’m so glad I finally just dove in. I see lots of room for improvement (I see those splotches) and am looking forward to learning more about the process.

~ Deirdre