In a previous blog post I mentioned using cyanotype as way of documenting the traces left in mud. I first attempted the cyanotype on a heavy canvas fabric but because of the thickness of it, the cyanotype did not work and ended up being either very faint and patchy or too dark.
This was slightly frustrating and I felt that this would never work but I then decided to try a thinner material, and this was much better. The patterns are much more discernible. The process of creating these cyanotype prints is a very long one, to start is the marking on the acetate of all the dents in the mud, this can take roughly two hours to fill in one, then dipping the fabric into the chemicals, drying the chemicals (this can take a day and more). The final part is placing the acetate onto the fabric in the light and waiting a couple of hours. With the finished cyanotype prints, I plan to frame them, having them in the same series, as one artwork.
A lot of my work has revolved around failure and.. hopefully success, I have never been 100% sure that what I do will workout, or can be seen as art.
An artist who embraced a look of failure in his work was Andy Warhol with his Marilyn Monroe print ‘Marilyn Diptryct’ 1962, acrylic on canvas, 2054 x 1448 x 20 mm, created after her death from a drug overdose. A multiple of the same print but in each one it differentiates, either with colour and then with fading, a look that in printmaking can be seen as a failure but this was not the case with Warhol, it was intentional, representing ‘the star’s demise’.
In 1967, Warhol did thirty silkscreen prints, another example of where he intentionally made some of the prints with imperfections, where the facial features aren’t aligned properly, with the same idea of representing her death.
My first attempt at using cyanotype has not gone to plan but it’s a learning curve as this is something I have not tried before but it is something I am going to keep trying and getting better as the last attempt came out better.
