Check out my body… of work.

So I completely my body of work in cyanotype… well so far. As part of the assessment I need to do things like framing and such, which can only be done at TAFE, but I wouldn’t say I’m 100% happy with the result. Basically things went a little screwy with the test piece and I really like the result, but I’m not sure I have enough to time try and replicate it and get it ready.

The problem is that as I’m working without a dedicated dark room so I can only things at night, and then I have to wait for things like the emulsion to set (typically 24 hours) and exposing also takes a chunk of time; and I can only do so many at a time with only one table. However to rewind a little bit, I finally get a good exposure test and made a test piece (as part of the assessment).

Numbers in pencil on the exposure sheet are the minutes it was exposed to UV light, the gradient helps me determine how much of range I want to aim for in an image.

What became the test sheet was a result because I wanted to try and add some splatter effects, the problem was that due to the colour of the emulsion (a light slightly green yellow) and the poor lighting on the room I couldn’t see what the pattern looked like so I thought it had failed. I finished painting the other pieces to conform to the image borders on the negative, a paper size issue from dealling with US letter vs A4, but I kept with the erratic border motif.

It wasn’t until after I finished exposing the test piece I noticed those weird white splotches going on and was perplexed as to what happened. Turns out I accidentally splashed emulsion on the back of the negative and didn’t notice, I had it close to eye ball the size but the splatter was unnoticeable even up to the point when I exposed the test piece the next day. Turns out the splatter cured and blocked the UV lights and created the marks on the test piece… and I absolutely love it, especially with the minimal splatter and rough edges of the brush as I just rushed to get it done to work on the proper pieces.

When the test piece works better than the rest.

So I have a conundrum now, do I redo all the pieces again with the updated spatter effects or stick with what I’ve got which is perfectly fine… just not as good. The other problem is I don’t know if I’ll have these ready or not by Monday, in which I want to have them in the catalogue for the end of year exhibition. I already have the original photos submitted as a just in case, but I feel like I might not be presenting my best work if I don’t go the extra mile and I’ve just made up my mind haven’t I.

Comparison shot.

Do have more behind the scenes shot but now I made myself think, so I guess I’ve got more work to do.

S