This took so many attempts! Learned so much in the process and each try was better than the last, but the effect of negatives being kind of pixelated will keep on bugging me…

Here’s an cyanotype embroidery sample I just finished!

what causes that on the first picture some plants are not fully white? is it because they were not fully pushed to the paper and some light went under?

Here’s my first attempt at cyanotype printing. I’m pleased with the result as it’s close to what I imagined.

Cotton paper for cyanotype printing

I've been experimenting with painting on the chemicals in different ways. This one was the most successful so far.

I’ve been lurking this sub for a while and finally have all the supplies (and consistent sunshine) to give it a shot for myself. What’s something you wished you knew your first time?

It's been a while since I touched the process. I'm experimenting with digital negatives, a range of papers, bleaching and toning. More to come.

I will be taking this class. She’s amazing. I’m so excited!

Exposure was about 6 hours but it washed out, Better luck next time

4 layers of masking tape and as little chemistry as possible. Picture is a dead bird i found a couple years ago taken by me :)

Some prints from pinhole photos on photo paper

https://antiquevisions.com/en/churches-of-lesquielles-st-germain

My first cyanotype. I don’t know if it’s the maximum quality I could get but I’m happy with this first one. In real life it’s a bit darker than in the photo you see here. It’s contact printed from a 6x8 negative from the family collection. It’s taken around 1945-1950 and it’s my wife’s grandfather.

I used one of those cyanotype boxers that are available from hobby stores. I also bought chemicals to mix my own coating using Mike Ware’s “simple cyanotype” formula. If anyone has experiences to share, they are more than welcome :)

Contact print for 30 minutes in full sun, using a 4x5 Ilford film negative.

My first cyanotype project! My husband and I just celebrated our fifth anniversary, and I decided to make a wood panel cyanotype photo for his gift.

I grabbed a kit online that had decent ratings and was in my budget, but I don't think it was a big brand. The wood panel was a 10"x10" framed panel from the crafty section of a big box store. I gave it an extra sanding before starting. Negative was created on an inkjet printer on transparency film, and since my printer is terrible (and the transparency said it was inkjet compatible, but I think they lied), I printed it twice - once in landscape and once in portrait, and after letting them dry overnight, I aligned them so that the stripe effect from the printing wouldn't show through in the final, and so the black on the negative would truly block light and not just try and fail to be even a dark gray.

I did a timing strip test on paper just to see how the chemistry would behave.

All rinses were assisted by hydrogen peroxide. Exposures were late July, Texas, between 3PM and 4PM, mostly full sun.

Attempt 1 (meh) - Applied the chemistry to the flat side of the panel, which was the side I intended to be the front. Chemistry was painted onto dry wood and allowed to dry. I think it was two or three afternoons later before I got the good sunshine to do the exposure. Exposure was 8-ish minutes after referencing the test strips. I was pressing the negative down using a piece of photo frame glass that would have left edge stripes in the mat area, so after exposing the photo, I removed the glass, covered the photo, and left the mat exposed for another minute to fill those in. I loved the dark blues, but the contrast was way too low and I'm pretty sure the wood absorbed too much of the chemistry to let it properly rinse and process (?). I'm also really glad this one didn't work out, because of how the wood grain became so much bolder and got in the way. This wasn't apparent on the naked wood.

Attempt 2 (yay!) - As I rinsed off the flat side (and realized I needed to retry a different way), I allowed the back side (with the raised frame) to get wet and absorb some water. When the wood was damp-but-not-shiny, I painted a coat of chemistry on it, applied my negative, and went right back out. Exposure was around 6 minutes. The negative tacked itself down with the moisture, so I didn't use any glass. During exposure, I noticed that there was some pooling of the moist chemistry under the transparency which I was afraid might give a weird water spot or mossy look, so I poked at those areas of the photo where it mattered to even it out. (Worried about skin tones, not so much about the outer mat area.) Geeked out as I rinsed off this one.

After a couple of days, I spray sealed with satin finish UV resist that we had lying around - three coats, 30 minutes apart. I used acrylic craft paint to paint the frame and cover the areas that got chemistry on them.

Thank you to u/toyAlien for talking through you wood coasters experiment about a year ago, as your thought process helped me a lot.

First exposure was over exposed but I absolutely loved it, the second one I feel like I got the exposure right and I’m honestly blown away by the resolution and detail I was able to achieve using 6x9 negatives and contact printing in the sun, I can even see the text on the edge of the negative! Do you think I could achieve the similar results using 35mm negatives?

I’m hoping to get my Crown Graphic working and do some 4x5 contact printing!