I’ve started carrying a sturdy little sketchbook around with me that I can use as an impromptu leaf press as my regular ones are just too bulky to carry everywhere. These are some of my finds from the past few days so I’ll be making some cyanotype prints with these this afternoon.

I’ve had some embroidery hoops for months now and I keep meaning to print some fabric for them. I had a spare piece of coated cotton so I used some of this mornings treasures for my first one. I need to work how I’m going to back them though.

I used the fabric I printed up on Saturday to make a lampshade today

Not much sun today but just enough to make this cyanotype sample on cotton with the idea of using the design for lamps/lampshades, cushions etc

I think they’re such sweet flowers - cosmos and anemones

Detail of some baby ferns on linen I printed earlier for a cyanotype lampshade. It’s been a lovely day in the studio with lots of chatty customers and visitors.

I’ve had these A4 wooden sheets for a while so I thought I’d use them for cyanotype printing today. I loved the traditional blue but i could see that the lovely grain would work better with toning (using tannic acid).

Photos of before and after

I received some amazing feedback from a recent workshop so I spent the morning trying to get to grips with Canva to create this for my instagram account. I like how easy it is to tweak something in Canva so that it fits my branding.

There are some architectural gems around the craft centre

Making prints for the shop today and this is a detail shot of a maidenhair fern

Not so much a day of creativity for me but a day of helping others to be creative on an afternoon cyanotype workshop.

The first photo is a pic of all the prepped samples. I just liked the accidental design of the four piles.

Not my work today but two of my workshop attendees’

I left immediately after the workshop so I didn’t get a chance to make or print any of my own work but I’ll happily share this work instead - two pieces of cyanotyped linen printed this morning ready for a lampshade they made this afternoon. I think they did a great job and nobody melted too much from the intense temperatures in the craft centre today!

I thought I’d have a go at toning this feather cyanotype print on cotton in anticipation of an upcoming workshop.

I used tannic acid to tone the print but I could have also used coffee, tea, red wine as they all contain tannins.

I tend to find that I get better results on fabric than I do on paper.

Also, the darker the blue I have in the original print, the darker the toned print ends up being and the colour range can vary from chocolatey browns to aubergine purples to much darker browns and almost charcoals like this. It’s all quite unpredictable though which, for me, is part of the charm of the technique.

I stayed at home today as I needed to catch up on some life admin but I made sure I found time for a couple of cyanotypes in the sun this afternoon.

The composition is not quite there yet, but almost.