Cyanotype Self-Portraitby ~revonthem

Traditional Art / Mixed Media / Abstract

So I honestly didn't know what category to put this in, and I don't know how many people know what a cyanotype is--I know I sure didn't before I made some!

This process was a "cyanotype photogram".. It's sort of like where you apply a couple of different chemicals to a piece of paper and after it dries it becomes very light sensitive. Then you can take it outside or somewhere with bright light and put transparent/translucent objects on top of it, and when the light shines through it it will create sort of a reverse photograph/shadow of the object. The object will appear to be white and the rest of the paper turns a bluish color. Then you go back inside and you can put it in another chemical to make the blue darker and then wash all of the chemicals off the paper (so you obviously have to have some heavy duty paper--this was bfk rives printmaking paper).

So! I made a few of those with a whole bunch of different objects.. and then cut them all up into 1 inch by 1 inch squares and made an abstract self-portrait out of them. It's one of those things where it looks like something from farther away, and then when you get up close to it it's a bunch of little textures and slightly different colors.

Whew! I don't know if anybody will read all of that, haha. But I thought I'd put it in case you were curious. Hope you like it! For one of my courses.
20" x 25".

MIC2009 / Madison Cowles