Cyanotype on fabric

Cyanotype on Fabric

I am currently taking a cyanotype class at the Flower City Art Center in Rochester NY,  in which I am creating negatives from digital images. Once I have the negative I print it on paper.

You can also create photograms and print them on fabric, not just paper. A photogram is placing objects on coated paper and exposing it via the sun or a special light to leave the imprint of the objects on the fabric or paper.

I ordered some fabric from Dharma Trading that is already prepared for cyanotype and this morning, although it was a somewhat cloudy morning I wanted to give it a try.

First I snipped some leaves from the red maple in my front flower bed and placed it on the fabric which I had put on a piece of white foamcore. Then placed a piece of plexiglass on top and put it in the back yard on the table. Since there was no sunlight I checked it every 15 minutes and after an hour felt it was exposed enough. On a sunny day it could take as little as 5 minutes.

 After removing the glass and the material this is what it looked like. You can see the color of the fabric had changed.

 I then placed it in a pan and ran water over it. I added a dash of hydrogen peroxide which speeds the process up a bit, and then gave it a running bath for ten minutes.

 You can see the color has changed to blue after washing it in water. It now drys on a towel.

I plan to explore this with photographs on fabric, and different types of fabric. I have also purchased the chemicals to coat my own fabrics so that I can experiment more. This is cotton fabric.
The blue is much more vibrant but did not photograph well for me.