cyanotypes
Cyanotypes have fascinated me since I learned about the original blueprints made by Olmsted (and other architects of the era) through exposing their hand drawings onto blueprint paper using a big office window. Cyanotype is an early form of photo printing that uses the sun as the light source to make image on a light-reactive surface.
In my work, I collect plants with interesting forms- usually ephemeral flower heads and grass stalks- and create large scale mixed media works on canvas and paper with cyanotype as the base of the work.
Detail of ‘Sunspot in a Coastal Prairie’. Cyanotype, dye, acrylic paint, colored pencil on canvas.
In my cyanotype research, I learned of the work by the naturalist researcher Anna Atkins. She made gorgeous cyanotypes of seaweed, feathers, and shells in the 1850’s and was a pioneer in utilizing cyanotype as a way of cataloguing the natural world. A sample of her work from the book, Sun Gardens, is included here.
I enjoy the process of cyanotype and have had a lot of success capturing images outside using the intense sunlight of Houston, Austin, and Santa Fe.
