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How to Make a Cyanotype
Sep 27, 2021
Learn how to make a cyanotype at home with Matt using this simple process! Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotype) Read the full tutorial + see more examples here: https://filtergrade.com/how-to-make-a-cyanotype/ Materials: * Jacquard Products Cyanotype https://www.jacquardproducts.com/cyanotype * Watercolor Paper https://www.dickblick.com/categories/paper/painting/watercolor-paper/ * Foam Brush https://www.dickblick.com/search/?q=foam%20brush * Gloves https://www.dickblick.com/search/?q=gloves - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Follow FilterGrade! Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/filtergrade Twitter - https://twitter.com/filtergrade
View Video Transcript
0:01
so today we're going to be going over
0:02
how to make a cyanotype print a
0:05
cyanotype is basically a type of
0:08
photography or print making method where
0:11
you use light sensitive chemicals that
0:13
react with uv light rays to produce a
0:17
cyano type image which is basically
0:20
instead of a black and white image it'll
0:22
be just cyan in white which is what you
0:24
can see here so today we're going to be
0:26
going over a quick little tutorial on
0:29
how to make some for yourself at home
0:32
for me i'm no expert at this i've only
0:34
been doing it for about four or five
0:35
days now first
0:37
two days were all experimentation and i
0:40
had a lot of negative results but that's
0:43
why i'm here today i want to show you
0:45
what to avoid what to do and how to make
0:47
a cool cyanotype so let's go ahead and
0:49
get into it
1:00
[Music]
1:02
now that you have a little bit better
1:04
idea of what a cyanotype actually looks
1:07
like i want to just go over the few
1:10
tools that you need to actually get
1:12
started
1:13
it's quite easy to do at home which is
1:15
why i wanted to try it out myself too so
1:18
to get started you're going to need
1:20
first and foremost the
1:22
jack horde cyanotype um
1:25
like solution kit that comes with a part
1:28
a and a part b
1:29
um you mix part a which comes as a like
1:32
a powder with water to the top make sure
1:35
it's shaken up really well and then let
1:37
it sit for 24 hours before you use it
1:40
you're gonna do the same with type b
1:42
um for me personally i didn't want to
1:44
wait the 24 hours so i just tried it
1:46
right away and that was one of the
1:49
the test prints where the emulsion
1:51
actually just came straight off the
1:52
paper so i'm not sure if it was the
1:54
paper the exposure time or if it was the
1:57
chemicals not being properly
1:59
um mixed up and
2:01
and sat there for 24 hours to to get
2:03
ready whatever the case may be maybe you
2:06
want to try it out yourself maybe not
2:08
now at least you know what could happen
2:10
so you're going to get these two mixed
2:12
up once you have those mixed up make
2:14
sure you're always shaking them before
2:16
use
2:17
two other tools are
2:19
a little bowl some people use just like
2:21
a tray
2:22
for
2:23
um
2:24
coating their prints with beforehand and
2:26
you're going to want a paint brush or a
2:28
foam brush some type of brush to apply
2:31
it to the paper
2:33
and then the last physical thing really
2:36
that you're going to need is watercolor
2:38
paper or
2:40
i've seen other people use brown paper
2:41
bags just regular paper you want
2:44
something that's going to be thick and
2:45
that can
2:47
withstand being in water afterwards
2:49
because you need to wash your print for
2:50
around five or so minutes sometimes more
2:53
so you don't want anything that's just
2:55
gonna like break down and wither away in
2:56
the water people have also used fabric
2:59
and things like that before
3:01
and then the last two things you're
3:03
going to need
3:04
are the sunlight which has all your uv
3:07
rays but if it's um
3:09
you know overcast out or if you just
3:11
don't
3:12
you know if it's too hard to go in and
3:14
out of your building to get outside to
3:16
expose your prints all the time
3:18
we actually have built you can pan over
3:21
there we've built our own
3:22
uv exposure lamps and right now it's on
3:25
just to add some room light
3:27
because it's dark in here but you can
3:29
also expose your screens and your your
3:32
cyanotypes rather underneath those just
3:35
uv hot boxes
3:37
and that should take between three and
3:39
30 minutes it's all just uh
3:42
just kind of an experimentation with how
3:44
far away your light is what type of
3:46
light bulb you have and things like that
3:48
so i can't really tell you
3:49
what your exposure time will be that's
3:52
just all the experimentation
3:55
the final tool that you're going to need
3:57
is just water running water or distilled
4:00
water at the end of the whole entire
4:02
process and that's what's just gonna be
4:04
your developing agent in this process
4:07
it's gonna turn your light sensitive
4:09
chemicals basically off and start
4:11
developing your image once you're done
4:13
one thing that i forgot to mention
4:15
equipment wise is to have a piece of
4:17
glass and or
4:19
um just a contact printing frame which
4:22
basically ensures that your negative or
4:25
your botanical or whatever it is that
4:27
you're printing with is flat and pressed
4:31
you know fully against the
4:34
the cyanotype paper because you don't
4:35
want it to have any
4:37
um space in between because then you're
4:39
basically printing the shadow instead of
4:41
printing what your actual negative is
4:44
which is going to give you a much
4:45
blurrier sometimes not even like
4:48
readable image
4:51
so today we are going to be using a few
4:54
different things to
4:56
to print with
4:58
you can use
5:00
different types of
5:02
transparency papers
5:04
you could use actual film negatives
5:07
which is what i did
5:09
for this one right here which came out a
5:11
tad bit blurry but you can see some of
5:14
the detail in some of the prints for me
5:16
i need to get better contact with the
5:18
actual piece of paper while i'm exposing
5:20
the screen we're gonna experiment with a
5:22
little bit outside is just finding some
5:24
botanicals like leaves flowers all right
5:26
so
5:27
the next step is actually coating your
5:29
paper and what you're going to want to
5:30
do
5:31
is because the chemicals
5:33
once they mix to each other they only
5:36
last for about two to four hours or so
5:38
so what i'm going to do is mix an even
5:40
portion
5:42
of part a
5:46
and part b into my little mixing cup
5:51
[Music]
5:57
that was a little sloppy but you're
5:59
going to mix an even part of b and a
6:03
then you're just going to stir up your
6:04
chemicals
6:06
make sure they're nice and evenly mixed
6:11
and the goal is to have as even as
6:13
possible which is why i use the caps of
6:15
the containers there's a few line
6:17
markings on them
6:19
and if you get it up to the same line
6:21
marker on each one you should have a
6:22
pretty
6:23
pretty good time
6:26
all right
6:27
so now that the chemicals are mixed up
6:29
this might be not enough but let's just
6:31
go ahead and start with the smaller ones
6:34
make sure you're in subdued light
6:36
slightly dark room
6:38
and go ahead and wet the top of the
6:39
brush but you don't want it to be too
6:41
too
6:42
like gunked up on there just just a
6:44
little amount to start
6:47
and just get a nice even coat all the
6:49
way across you can fill the paper you
6:52
can leave the edges kind of like blank
6:54
some people like to have more of that
6:56
painterly look it just all depends on
6:57
what you want
7:00
and
7:01
be sure that you're going
7:03
vertically and horizontally
7:06
and once you're finally finished with it
7:08
there's no bubbles there's no drip marks
7:11
anything like that you want it to be as
7:13
even as possible or else you will see it
7:16
in the final print now that this is all
7:19
done these should be kind of a
7:24
yellowish color right now while it's
7:25
still in the dark room you don't
7:28
because obviously once it hits the sun
7:30
the goal is to get it to brighten up
7:32
it'll be a greenish color and then after
7:34
that it is going to turn into blue once
7:37
you've washed it
7:40
you're going to want to turn the fan on
7:42
just to let them dry off this will take
7:44
about five or ten minutes maybe longer
7:46
if you don't have a fan
7:51
to actually get started let's just
7:53
put down
7:56
let's just start with some of these
7:57
smaller ones to get a variety of options
8:18
all right so
8:20
i think this looks good right now
8:23
and let's just go ahead and take it
8:25
outside
8:26
set up the timer probably go for 10
8:28
minutes because it's pretty bright
8:29
outside and fingers crossed that it
8:31
works
8:35
today is definitely
8:37
really bright out so hopefully this
8:39
won't take too long
8:41
i'm gonna set a timer
8:44
usually just set my stopwatch so
8:47
i can just keep an eye on it
8:49
probably gonna go for
8:51
five minutes or so because
8:53
um
8:55
no i'll probably go for 10 minutes
8:56
because overexposure is definitely
8:58
better than under exposure
9:05
you're going to want to use cold water
9:06
too
9:08
if you have hydrogen peroxide like i
9:10
said that's a lot better
9:20
and this one looks like it's coming out
9:22
although it is a little bit
9:25
blotchy in some areas
9:30
as you can see this one's starting to
9:32
come out this one's kind of cool
9:33
actually
9:40
and just keep agitating it a little bit
9:43
you'll see the color of the water start
9:45
to change
9:46
maybe you get a little yellow or green
9:48
so just keep
9:50
keep changing the water every once in a
9:52
while
10:16
and these will get bold like way more
10:18
bold as the day goes on
10:21
i think it takes 24 hours to get fully
10:23
like what the image will look like flick
10:25
finalized
10:27
let's do these other ones
11:03
all right so you always have to remember
11:05
to dry out your prints as well once
11:07
you're done with the five minute or so
11:09
wash once the water runs clear then
11:11
you're gonna just hang them dry um over
11:14
the course of the next 24 hours it's
11:16
going to become a lot more of a bold
11:18
cyan color
11:21
which is when you'd want to you know
11:22
digitize or scan it after that for me
11:25
because the paper will wrinkle up once
11:27
it's dried out
11:28
i usually like to get all my prints
11:30
stacked up on top of each other i'll put
11:33
a clean piece of just copy paper or
11:35
something like that on top
11:37
and then a few books to just weigh
11:39
everything down and make everything nice
11:41
and smooth and flat again this way you
11:44
know you're not dealing with just all
11:46
shriveled up like wrinkled prints when
11:47
you go and try and scan everything in or
11:49
digitize it however you do so that's
11:52
just one thing to keep in mind as well
11:57
prints themselves because i feel like i
11:58
didn't actually explain the exposure
12:00
times and things like that in the
12:02
beginning i said you could do anywhere
12:04
from three to thirty minute exposures
12:06
and obviously depends on the lighting
12:09
and things like that but just to give
12:11
you a better idea of what you can make
12:14
and what you'll want to make just off of
12:16
look i want to just go through each of
12:18
the exposure times and also what the
12:21
negative was
12:22
so for these two right here these were
12:25
exposed for 10 minutes a piece
12:27
and they were
12:29
from this was a negative that i blew up
12:32
on a transparency paper and that's the
12:35
same with that photo as you can see the
12:37
results were pretty bad you can't really
12:39
tell the images at all especially for
12:41
that one this you would need a much much
12:43
longer exposure for both of these
12:46
because i think the black point is not
12:48
high enough therefore you're not going
12:50
to get
12:51
as deep of an exposure if you left this
12:54
out for hours you might get something
12:56
but nobody wants to do that
12:59
um
13:00
let's look at
13:02
the next one okay so just off what i
13:04
have offhand these four medium format
13:08
negatives which were black and white
13:09
film is what produced these prints which
13:13
were exposed for 10 minutes as well
13:17
and
13:18
i think you definitely can see just base
13:21
like
13:22
comparing the two you get an image
13:24
versus you don't really get much of an
13:25
image
13:26
um you you'd have to expose this a lot
13:29
longer whereas the same 10-minute
13:31
exposure got me brighter
13:33
images that really you know you can tell
13:35
what they are
13:36
so just off of preference i would rather
13:39
continue doing it with medium format
13:41
negatives
13:42
because like the actual raw negative
13:45
because it just has a better
13:47
better tonal range for printing and
13:49
enlarging to other things
13:52
this one right here was with the
13:54
botanicals that you saw outside
13:57
i really like the way it looks i think
13:58
it this was for 10 minutes as well and
14:01
this one for me looks like
14:03
you know like kind of abstract a little
14:05
like flowers and a little like
14:07
hummingbirds i like this one a lot so
14:09
for this
14:10
which was my favorite um
14:13
print of the day this was actually just
14:17
this thing right here the the negative
14:19
sheet
14:20
put over top of it i didn't even take it
14:23
out of the negative sleeve i didn't you
14:25
know i just wanted to see if it would
14:26
work and i think
14:29
up close you can see
14:31
maybe
14:32
that the negative sleep might be causing
14:34
a little bit of detail change but all in
14:37
all you get an idea of what the photos
14:39
are and i kind of i like that look
14:41
actually so i would probably do this
14:43
again in the future
14:45
um
14:46
this one here
14:48
was from a few days ago as you can see
14:50
and
14:51
the although the exposure wasn't or you
14:54
know the print you know
14:57
emulsion wasn't perfect in these two
14:59
photos you can actually see some detail
15:02
and
15:03
i don't know i like the way that that
15:04
looks so i think i'll definitely
15:06
continue doing these contact sheet
15:10
type prints i really like the look of
15:12
that and
15:13
these two were actually for 15 minutes
15:16
of exposure 15 maybe even 16 or 17
15:19
minutes um
15:21
but these ones were really i think they
15:23
came out the best this one could have
15:26
been a little bit better but all in all
15:27
this one came out the best and that 15
15:29
minutes of of bright daylight really
15:32
helped out
15:33
so
15:34
all in all i would say 10 to 15 minutes
15:37
for me
15:38
10 works but i would just stick with 15
15:41
or more from now on because
15:44
i know that the image is going to come
15:46
out a lot better than if i just get lazy
15:49
and try and cut corners and go a little
15:50
bit shorter than that so i'll usually
15:52
stick with 15 or more and i think
15:55
out of everything we got a few good
15:57
results a few bad results i definitely
15:59
learned a lot and i hope you were able
16:01
to learn a lot throughout the process as
16:03
well
16:04
this is this for me this was it's a
16:06
really fun experience just the whole
16:09
process of it i'm used to developing
16:10
photos in a bucket and it taking you
16:14
know 30 minutes or 40 minutes sitting in
16:16
a bucket and then most of the time it's
16:17
spent scanning the images so for that
16:20
for me this is kind of a different
16:21
process more so like screen printing
16:24
almost but i really enjoy it and i hope
16:27
you do too i want i hope everybody out
16:29
there tries it um it's fun even for if
16:32
you're just you know family and you're
16:34
looking to do something fun with your
16:36
kids or something like that the same
16:37
company actually sells pre-treated paper
16:40
so you can just go to the store pick up
16:42
the paper that's already has the
16:44
chemical on it and just put your own
16:46
designs on it and things like that so
16:49
definitely check it out if you've never
16:51
tried cyanotype printing it's a lot a
16:53
lot of fun and if you have any questions
16:56
comments anything like that if you have
16:58
any critique even make sure to leave it
17:00
down below in the comments because i
17:02
want to hear your thoughts and opinions
17:04
but other than that i hope you have a
17:05
good day and peace out
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