Week 3 Report

                                                          Image: Cyanotype of Coco

Dates:

May 23 & 25, 2017

Processes I learned this week: Hand coloring photos (5.23.17),  historical cameras, including a selection of medium-format cameras (5.25.17)

Notes on what I learned for each process, including tips, tricks, recipes, materials, failures, etc:

1. Hand coloring-  we have a treasure trove of paints, colored pencils, pastels, and… easter egg dye on hand at the lab in case we need to embellish our photos and prints by hand.  At home, I have quite a bit of dry and some wet art materials.  Have not tried this process yet, but have a print that needs some detailed attention that I suspect will call for some color pencil work. Excited to put my drawing training to work!

Aside: Easter egg dye, while not appealing as a hand coloring agent, did inspire me to want to make cyanotype eggs.   My current batch of eggs are naturally tinted, most a light to medium terra cotta, and a few have a lovely pale green cast.  In preparation I blew out my first successful egg today.  Then I destroyed one of the lovely green ones.

2. Historical camera collection- Tim brought in some of his cameras, plus we looked at selections from the WCC collection. Highlights were Tim’s quirky moving image camera, and the beautiful old medium -format cameras. I checked out one of the fancier medium-format cameras, the Hasselblad and will have more to report on this front after the long weekend. 

Other processes I worked with this week and notes, tips, tricks, and failures.

This week, I had a chance to make cyanotype and van dyke brown (VDB) prints. On Tuesday, using the UV machine in Room 17, I made my first cyanotype test strip (90 sec baseline and increment) and print (5 minutes) of the digital negative I created on May 16 of my dog, Coco. The print turned out too light. Pam suggested that I re-coat it in VDB solution and re-expose the image.

On Thursday, I did this, leaving a small window around Coco’s left eye with just the cyanotype (as she is brown and white, except for that one blue eye.) During lab on Thursday night, I re-exposed the print, and it came out with a nice rich brown tone (4 minutes, demo room uv box.) Only problem is the area around the eye that I did not cover with VDB. Looks like a gash of white and light blue, not the subtle effect of a blue eye on a brown dog I was hoping for.  My solution to this problem is to go back with colored pencils, and draw in the fur and eye in this gash. Am I up to this task? Yes, thanks to my two wonderful drawing instructors and the five drawing classes I have taking with them at WCC!!

Also, on Thursday during class, I exposed a VDB test strip (120 sec base and 30 sec increment) and contact print (3.5 minutes) of the same image of Coco, using the UV machine in Room 17.  The test strip came out with a nice deep brown, whereas the brown of the print had an orange-yellow cast.  Need to work on consistency in coating the paper.

 

Finally, in lab on Thursday, I began to expose some of my negatives from darkroom photography class directly onto hand torn strips of VDB paper.  The first one was a test strip of five 35mm negatives (60 sec base and increment, demo room UV box), and turned out quite artsy. The second one did not retain any images, but the sprocket holes came out well defined. Both of these strips were thinly coated, so I was surprised that the first one turned out as good as it did! My final print had two strips of  5 negatives each, and I used a more thoroughly coated piece of paper (4 min). Turned out with a nice deep dark brown after developing, images are crisp. Can't wait to see these on Tuesday, after they've had a chance to dry and mellow into the final deeper shades of brown.

I like the little images, and might want to do a micro-photo album. Saw a few of these at the Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair last Sunday, May 21. Also, dreaming of which images will look best in cyanotype, which in vdb. And, would like to transfer a few of the 35mm negatives to larger digital negatives. Planning to do this during lab time on Tuesday afternoon. Plans did not work out, as scanners were monopolized by an advanced student doing her own film-to-digital negative transfers. Scans of this nature take longer than the image scans that I have been making for this blog. Also, there is a procedure for scanning film negatives, so I will need some guidance at first.

Other information I learned from other students in class:

Pam brought in one of her hand made accordion books, and a set of three little books nestled in a box. What beautiful ways to display her work! I love the intimate scale of the photographs, and how the book format invites the viewer to peruse and linger.  The smaller books each featured the same photograph, only printed using different process. Open each book to find notes on the process. She did not use any glue in the construction of these books, preferring intricate folds and cuts to hold them together.  She also made a box to house the three little books. What an inspiration!