Beyond Books and Screens

Blue Skies for Blue Prints

Spring is officially here at Penn! The sun is shining and the cool winter air finally begins to warm into a gentle breeze. Once the weather rises above 60 degrees, it is nearly impossible for me to resist the call of that Prussian blue alternative photographic process: it’s cyanotype season! 

To be clear, every season can be cyanotype season; from the dead of winter to the first bloom of spring— but nothing quite beats laying outdoors in the sun with a collection of leaves, sticks, and pretty petals on a beautiful afternoon in April! Since joining the Penn community almost 3 years ago, I’ve made some valiant efforts to spread my cyanotype agenda across campus. In 2024, Christine Kemp of Education Commons and I hosted a Penn Libraries staff-only cyanotype workshop in the summer (something I am eager to repeat again this year). This workshop was our guinea pig, and we used it to work out any kinks that may come up when hosting this event for students later on. 

Needless to say, it was definitely a learning experience. 

While the workshop was a lot of fun, and we were able to get a couple of good prints out of it, there were definitely adjustments to be made in our approach. We used laser-print compatible transparency sheets to create digital negatives (which printed a light gray instead of a deep black)  and glass that was UV protected, resulting in some extremely light cyanotypes. 

Still, there is so much beauty to be found in human error. 

Christine and I learned so much from this experience, and we were determined to apply those lessons for round two. This year’s cyanotype workshop was held in two parts: creating digital negatives in the Vitale Digital Media Lab, and using those negatives to make cyanotype prints at Education Commons. 

For part one of this cyanotype series, we asked attendees to bring in color positive photos of their choice to be made into digital negatives. Seeing the variety of pictures being brought in was a real joy: from cute cat photos, to gorgeous still lives, to a very intricate digital collage. These color positive photos were then taken into Adobe Photoshop and made black & white. From there, we manipulated the black & white image to increase contrast, playing around with the Brightness & Contrast, Levels, and Curves adjustment layers. Finally, we inverted our black & white images to create the digital negative.

Learning from the last workshop, Christine and I opted to print out the digital negatives on Pictorico Inkjet Transparency Film. The inkjet printer gave us a rich, deeper black, which in theory should result in a clearer and more detailed final print: let's test it out! 

The following week, we were gifted with a beautiful, sunny, 80 degree day for part two of our workshop! Attendees gathered at Education Commons in Franklin Field, where Christine and I set up our makeshift cyanotype lab! 

A.K.A , a couple panels of glass, some pretreated cyanotype fabric sheets, some hand painted cold pressed cotton paper, our collection of negatives, two dark room trays to develop our prints, two buckets of water to refresh the developing trays, and some string tied between two chairs to create a clothes line drying station— and of course, our big bright sun! 

There is no greater joy of mine than watching people indulge in one of my many interests and have a good time. The time spent hand-treating over 30 sheets of cold pressed cotton paper in the dark kitchen of the EC was more than worth it. Attendees switched from exposing their digital negatives onto fabric sheets, to collecting leaves and blades of grass to expose onto cotton paper. 

A feeling of nostalgia washes over me while watching people hover over their prints to watch them expose in real time, filled with anticipation to see the end results. I am instantly transported back to getting my first sunprinting kit and laying worms and acorn caps across the page (so sorry worms.) 

Though this workshop ran ten times more effectively than the last, there is still room for improvement. The partly cloudy weather, the change in the sun’s position in the sky, and how quickly our developing trays needed to be refreshed with clean water definitely resulted in a few funky prints; and yet, these faded, watercolor-like prints feel as though they’re pulled straight from a dream. 

Where there is a beautiful mistake, there is another chance to learn and try again, and how exciting is that?