Cyanotype love!

When I saw the google doodle today honoring badass botanist and early photographer Anna Atkins I had to share these placemats I made using the very same cyanotype technique she used over 150 years ago to document algae. I love that this early photographic process is almost exactly the same as when it was invented and still widely used today. It makes such beautiful Prussian blue hues. 

For a collaboration with Design*Sponge I was making sun print place cards. So, while I was at it why not make play with cyanotype on fabric? It was fall and then leaves were perfect. I love the way they turned out. Subtle purple leaf shapes, and undulating blues.

If you want to give cyanotypes a go you can try a sun print kit, or Lumi Inkodye, which works a lot like cyanotypes, but comes in lots of great colors!

Creative Experiments with Sun Printing

“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Here are some magical experiments with sun printing on fabric I made a while ago when I had the luxury of space and bright, sunny days in California. Making sun prints is really easy and fun. Basically, you place objects on light sensitive material, expose it to the sun, and then dip it into photographic chemicals or, in this case, water. You get these crisp, graphic, silhouettes....

Sunography offers some very cool paper and fabric kits (with 6 different colored fabrics included) if you want to try this too! Let me know if you give this a try.

p.s that's Tatianna & Dexter, two of my mom's chihuahuas, helping me out. Stupid cute, right?