87. Something

This weekend our school is hosting ArtStart a smorgasbord of art activities on campus for the students and great community at large. Of course I was asked to participate months ago and said yes without thinking the whole project through. Leaping off the traditional saying of "Something old, something new, and something blue" I decided to play with newer technologies of image capture as well as the archaic medium of cyanotype.

The basic idea is this. Create a composition made of objects right on a scanner's glass surface and use the scanner as a camera to record that composition (example is my posted photo.) The next step is to invert the image in PhotoShop, reversing the tones, and to print it on transparency film. The resulting acetate negative is used to create a positive image on photographic paper sensitized by the cyanotype process. Cyanotypes are a brillant, rich deep monochromatic blue.  Thank goodness for my friend and colleague Donna Pattee-Ballard who brought along some toys (literally) to play with. After a few tries we ended up with some interesting compositions. Unfortunately the cyanotype prints didn't dry in time to post today...  but still loving the funky palm trees and army men.