This project was experimental for me, having never produced cyanotypes before apart form my technical ‘blueprint’ ‘dyeline’ drawings in the 1980’s, where the original drawing on tracing paper went through a machine to produce a blue copy.

I have used found objects from the river’s edge, mixing plants and rubbish to highlight both natural forms and marks made from the waste. The process of making these prints is slow and sensitive, mirroring our ecological fragility.

The original blue hues, representative of water, showing the flow and movement with natural tidal lines, illustrate an ethereal, dreamlike tone reminiscent of loss, traces, and of nature left behind.

The pieces are made up from different developments adding water, soap, lemon juice and vinegar to disrupt the natural process. Layering the fragility of nature with the hard structure of plastics, to produce a three dimensional layering effect.

Cyanotypes blur the lines between photography, drawing and painting producing expressive, experimental pieces with painterly gestural marks. The negative spaces can illustrate losses, the ghostly white forms reminiscent of extinction and the softer marks indicative of the fragility of our environment.

These are all 297 mm x 210 mm.

I put the last piece in a silent crit yesterday and it was very well received by those who were familiar with my work and those who weren’t. I was encouraged to continue with these experiments from my peers to see how I could push these further. One suggestion was to alter the chemical balance which can bring out different colours in addition to the blues.

Reflection

The artwork traces the stages and process that I worked through over several days. Things radically change with the addition of water and again with the lemon juice and vinegar, re shaping once again. Shadows and actual form emerged within the pieces from me intentionally laying everything out in a disorganised way, echoing how the objects are found at the edge of the water. Marks of time, memory and absence.

These are illustrative of decay and regeneration, the work is imperfect and unpredictable, shaped as much by chance as by intention.

So much of the work’s presence lies in the subtle, physical details, the quiet things that can’t always be planned but then become central to the outcome.

The plants and reeds entangled with the fragments of discarded rubbish, hopefully drawing attention to the uneasy meeting of the natural forms and the human man made traces left behind. Making the cyanotypes is a slow sensitive process, each step navigating care. The blues echo the colour of water and carry with them the movement of the ebb and flow, the drift and return. Their ethereal tones evoke traces of what is left behind as a memory.

Through successive developments, the introduction of more than just the water, I deliberately disrupted the chemical process and by doing so, these interventions created a subtle depth, the whiter softer textures suggesting the vulnerability of our ever changing environment.

References https://scma.smith.edu/blog/simple-process-one-can-do-while-social-distancing-inspired-cyanotypes-anna-atkins

Acessed 24th April 2025.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/anna-atkins-cyanotypes-the-first-book-of-photographs.html

Acessed 24th April 2025.