Last time, I did an experiment with ironing beads or ‘Bügelperlen/Steckperlen’, this brought me right back to my childhood. But since I have been doing many things for my Print Production submission, I thought that trying out a printing technique would nicely fit my experiments, since I’m trying to do more different analogue work. I decided on doing sun printing, because this was shown as a technique that is also a fun experiment for children, so I thought if they can do it then surely I can do it too. Since I had never done this technique before I thought that I would do it in a fairly simple way, but of course for future experiments I might be able to try out a few more complex things in this direction.
So, without further ado, I will explain how sun printing works, what the challenges were and show you how my own process went. Basically the kind of sun printing that I chose (there are several different types and options to choose from) is cyanotype. However, as I already mentioned, I did the simple version of it and just bought some pieces of paper that were already chemically treated. I had to take the piece of paper out of its light-proof packaging, there is one side that is slightly blue, this is the side that you’re supposed to work with, since this is the side with the chemicals. Then you take some bits and pieces, it can be natural materials like plants or any other material that you can think of. The important thing is to tape the pieces in place so they don’t move too much, when you put the piece of paper outside. Then you leave it there for a while around 30 mins, you take all of the pieces off and wash the paper. The colour turns into a darker blue and the part where the pieces were turns into a negative image due to the UV-rays. Then the paper dries and you have your final print.
This was a very fun process for me and I also learned a few things on what to really do ideally. I chose to just work with cutting out pieces from a piece of cardboard and then stick it to the paper with tape. When I put it outside I decided to put some stones in the corners of the paper, even though it would show up on the print, because otherwise my project would have been blown away by the wind. Then I decided to spontaneously try out putting some small natural materials on top, like a stick and some daisies, for instance. However, I was too lazy to also tape them to the paper, therefore they moved and they don’t really show up on my print, even though, some of them were still on the paper in the end. It was a nice process, I will definitely do it again and try out some more things. I again decided to stick with the topic of food as a political symbol for certain cultures. This time I chose some corn as a symbol for native americans that were and still are brutally driven out of their own lands and I chose the watermelon as a symbol for palestine again.
