Cyanotype Under Lights

I’ve worked with the cyanotype process with the sunlight in the past. You can see my last post about it here. The challenge, of course, comes when there’s no sun. I had heard that lights can be used for this type of printing, so after some research, I found this light setup.

The unit actually includes two lights and additional pipe that allows for printing images up to 20 x 24 inches. To start, I wanted to test it using the smaller setup. For information on this lighting unit, check out this link.

Before printing, the substrate must be coated with two different solutions. You can also purchase pretreated paper or fabric, which I’ve used in previous tutorials.

The bottles come with dry chemicals. The first step is to add water to each bottle. Then, mix the two solutions together in equal parts (a 50/50 mix) in a separate container. I prepared only a small amount since I was doing just a couple of tests. Once mixed, the solution remains active for only a few hours. However, the unmixed solutions in the original bottles last quite a long time. I added water to mine several years ago, and they still worked great.

Once the solution is mixed, brush it onto your substrate. This step should be done in a dimly lit room with no direct light. After coating, the paper or fabric must dry in a dark space. I placed a box over my pieces to block out light. Once dry, it’s ready to print.

In the photo above, I’m exposing my test fabric under the light. Before printing, I needed to determine the proper exposure time. For my test, I placed a piece of cardboard over part of the fabric and exposed it for six minutes to start. Then I turned off the light, moved the cardboard down about an inch, and immediately exposed the next section for another minute. I continued this process down the length of the fabric, giving me a clear record of exposure times.

Here’s the result on fabric. The first section was exposed for six minutes, and by the time I reached the end, the first section had a total exposure of fourteen minutes.

I repeated this process with paper, starting with four minutes and adding a minute each time I moved down. The best exposure for paper turned out to be ten minutes (four minutes plus six one-minute additions).

Now that my test prints are complete, I know my exposure times: fourteen minutes for fabric and ten minutes for paper. I’ll be back soon to share the results of my first cyanotype printing without the sun.

But wait! I can also use this set up to sun print!! Stay tuned.