"put your work up on a wall and live with it"

One result of the second really productive meeting with my mentor, Joy Episalla, this morning:

Going to live with these until the sun comes back so that I can expose some more test prints (silk organza ordered online that finally arrived, and some of my mom's fabric).

experimenting

While newly toned fabric prints are drying, here's another experiment I have been working on:

Since I had some leftover chemistry I coated one of the drawings I've been using as negatives. I am intrigued by the interaction between the disappearing ink lines on the ground and the negative lines created by the cyanotype print on top.

light

Along with having my first mentor meeting of the semester this week I got to have a look at the James Turrell exhibit at the Guggenheim. Despite large crowds I really enjoyed having some time to take in the light and color in his work. I especially enjoyed the way his prints are displayed to make them look like light installations also.

Images from: http://www.girvin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/james-turrell_13.jpg

http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/tag/guggenheim/

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell/installation-photos

http://www.artbook.com/9780892074884.html

tannin.

Toned with tannin from a brewer's supply store.

test prints and toning

5 different kinds of fabric. In each row the first one was washed in water before printing, the second was as-is, the third I sized with cornstarch. A few different experiments with the paper negatives (row 1 middle image, only half waxed; row 1 and 3 first image, negative sewn together out of two pieces of paper). And finally row 4 images 1 and 2 are my first toning experiments (bleached with borax, toned with tea). More toning will happen this week and then I will decide which fabric I like most, and which toning technique will work best.

After several weeks of recovering, thinking, planning, ordering chemicals, waiting for chemicals to arrive, buying fabric samples, and sketching I was finally able to make some test prints today. I will experiment with toning these cyanotypes to get colors other than blue and then hopefully I'll be able to figure out a way to make them big.

Animation

Here is a much compressed version of the finished map animation. Eventually I will figure out how to post a high (well, normal) quality video to a website. For now, I hope this will do. (Remembered Meadowlands)