Cyanotype printing with Joanna Jowette

About the Artist

Joanna is an artist, writer and producer based in Leeds. She has her own website which gives more of a detailed biography including her CV, shop and work including details of workshops she holds. This website can be found here.

History of Cyanotype printing

The oldest way of creating a print or photo using the sun. First developed in 1842 by Sir John Herschel. The striking blue of the cyanotype is created using a traditional mixture of coating paper or fabric with potassium ferrocyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. Artists now use acetate. Anna Atkins was an English Botanist and photographer considered the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images using cyanotype. See her work here.

Equipment

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): rubber gloves, apron/lab coat, goggles

material for patterns: feathers, fern, ivy, moss and flowers

watercolour paper

potassium ferrocyanide

ferric ammonium citrate

flat Japanese brush or sponge brush

UV lamp

perspex or glass from a picture frame

picture frame

Black felt tip

Container of water

Table with table cloth or newspapers to protect it.

Steps

1. Put on your PPE.

2. Put a cap of both potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium in a container, then mix.

3. Paint onto your watercolour paper using a flat brush or sponge.

4. Put your work in the darkroom and leave it or 20 minutes.

5. Come up with a design using materials, then place it onto a pre-prepared piece of paper and clip it onto the frame. You can draw a design on a piece of perplex and place it on your cyanotype paper. The sun will go through the perplex, but leave an outline of your design from the black marker pen.

6. Place it under the sun or UV light until it turns blue. The stronger the rays, the darker the blue.

7. Remove the frame and wash with water to remove the chemicals. You will notice it turns a darker blue.

8. Place to dry on a table covered with a tablecloth or newspapers.

My work

I was inspired by medieval bestiaries, compendiums of fictional and real beasts, to draw my own illustrations of animals next to a letter using medieval calligraphy as an inspiration. For the beaver, I used the uncial font used from the 4th to the 8th centuries AD, and the Rustic Capitals font used from the 1st to 9th centuries AD for the Lark. The reason why I chose these two animals is because I was inspired by Elsa Price's dissertation "The Great British Beaver Break: The Beaver Beyond the Bestiary" , when I was writing my own dissertation, "An Interdisciplinary Approach to the white lily, exploring the cultural symbolism and agricultural properties in the High Middle Ages."

Lark bookmark, placed directly outside in the sun.

A beaver, developed under a UV lamp.

Group project

For the group project, we made an A4 design of Leeds city skyline from the top of Westview road, a popular view point for artists. I drew this on a piece of perplex using a black marker and then we added words linked to the theme of the project, "Creative Communities" and added ferns, lace etc to give it texture. We wanted to show the merge between nature and city as our group was held in the Beeston neighbourhood, a suburb in south Leeds.

Group project