Following on from my blog about turning the photographs of traces in mud into prints, I have now decided to turn them into cyanotype prints. A process where you need to have two chemicals to turn paper into light sensitive paper or use already made sun-print paper. You then place objects onto the paper and leave it outside in the sun for only a few minutes. When the minutes are up, you wash the chemicals of the paper and you should be left with a white pattern of the object you used, on top of a blue background. A form of camera-less photography.
What I have been doing is placing acetate on top of the photographs and using a black permanent marker pen, colouring any of the shaded areas, where an impression has been made into the mud. When I started this process I was planning on doing dry point etchings but suddenly had this great idea of using cyanotype. I believe this will give a better copy of the marks and so any footprints or what ever else that was left in the mud will be more discernible.
I am now awaiting the arrival of the chemicals, so when they do arrive and I can start this process I will keep this blog updated.
Today I have tried out a test run for an idea that I wasn’t sure would work. I did a plaster cast of the ground (my garden). The outcome has showed that it could work but a few changes would be needed.
Here is a step by step guide on what I did:
- I made up the plaster cast and let it thicken so that when I pour it into the ground it would not fall into the smallest of holes and would not run anywhere I didn’t want it too.
- When it had thicken I put the frame (an old canvas frame) down onto the ground where I wanted it. I then poured in the plaster, there was a little that went past the borders but I was not too worried about that, when I do this properly I will make more plaster and so the border would be needed more.
- When poured, I put some cling film over the top to stop anything from going into the plaster but I did realise that I could have put it underneath the frame so the plaster would still run over all the bumps but not collect any of the debris in the mud.
- I had to wait roughly 15 minutes for the plaster to dry and when I did pull the plaster away from the mud it was extremely easy but it was covered in mud and stones and took a long time to clean.
The plaster cast has a lot of stones and mud embedded in it but this has not deterred me from this project because I believe that it could be a successful (in my eyes) project to do.
Today I have brought in the three pieces of copper that I had left outside for approximately two months. I love them! The copper is very thin and because of this, the wind creased it up into different shapes. There are some very interesting lines from where the rain water couldn’t reach because of the creases and where I had to place plant pots because the wind kept blowing them away (into my neighbour’s front garden, which wasn’t fun retrieving!). The trouble was worth it. The copper captures the very thing I was looking for; documenting the traces and destruction caused by nature, and it is aesthetically pleasing as well. Realising how well this has worked out I will be placing more metal outside, especially copper, and letting nature do its thing.
The next part is to displaying these properly, I was thinking about mounting them onto black board so highlighting the different copper colours and patterns.
At the start of the year I had decided to start a blog, documenting my works process and the final outcomes, the same as I will be doing here. Here is the link to the old blog and so you will have a better understanding of what I have been doing: http://fernhillen.blogspot.co.uk
