8 Days

Well, there are only 8 days until my senior exhibition.  This means that Kristen has been in mass production mode AND freak out mode.

In the past two days I made 36 cyanotypes.  Tonight I am going to tone all of those.  This week I am working 30 hours at my 'part-time' job.  Yes, 30 hours the week before my senior exhibition...just freaking awesome.  I have so much to get done and among all of that it is Thanksgiving Break, meaning I am going home Wednesday night to spend a (hopefully) relaxing Thanksgiving with my family and boyfriend.  I am hoping I can turn my brain off Thursday so I can enjoy this awesome food-filled holiday.

Well I have to be at work in 30 minutes and I just got out of the shower.  Guess I am going to be late...is it bad that I don't care? I wish I didn't have to work this semester.  Maybe my life would have been just a little less stressful.  O well, guess I will never know!

I will post some pictures tonight when I get up to the studio :)

Happy Sunday!

Editing

Yesterday I spent about four hours in the Print Lab editing my negatives and printing off more digital negatives to use.  By editing I simply mean - removing dust, marks, scratches, and adjusting the levels so that I can produce the best digital negative possible for my cyanotypes.  Sometimes I hate that I am so OCD when it comes to this part of the process, but I think it pays off in the end.
Example:

35mm Negative scanned into the computer - before any editing

After editing - all I did was remove all the dust and marks and adjust the levels

This is why I do love Photoshop so much :)

Toned Cyanotypes

Since I am extremely tired I am not going to write much today but I did want to share a few photos.  All day today I have been printing cyanotypes and then toning them.  I have 20 toned prints at the moment and I am thinking that  8-10 of them look awesome and are worthy to be in my show :) Hopefully they don't dry too dark though.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the process these little fellas went through to look awesome:

I coated a few more 6x4 pieces of 140#

This one is actually 10x6 inches

I scanned in all of the cyanotypes I made so I can have record of them before I toned them all

The top print: Cyanotype only went in the Tannic Acid Bath
The bottom print: Finished product - Tannic Acid bath, water bath, Sodium Carbonate bath, water bath
Huge difference right?! I love it :)

Finished product!! I am REALLY happy with this one.  Originally I wanted it to be 18x12 but I am liking the 10x6. We shall see...

 Thoughts on what you think are more than welcome :D

Cyano-ed

Today I came into the studio at 6:30pm.  Even though it doesn't look like I accomplished much, I do feel like I got a lot done.  I went ahead and sized all of my paper that I have (I desperately need to buy more but am lacking the funds).  I then coated all 60 pieces of paper - it really didn't seem like that many while I was doing it.  The sizes vary: 6x4 to 12x12 pieces.

Even though I am tired, I decided to expose a few of them just so I can have something to look at tomorrow that is completed.  I exposed seven 6x4 prints and one 10x6 - hopefully they look good after they have dried and do not darken too much.

One thing that is awesome about making smaller prints is that I can expose more that one at a time :)

Three 6x4 prints in the contact frame ready to be exposed

The paper that I am using for my show is Arches Watercolor 140# Rough Coldpress.  The only thing that I do not like about it - and I mean the only thing because this paper is awesome - is that when I develop my cyanotypes it takes forever (and by forever I mean only 15 minutes) for all of the yellow to come out of the highlights.  I know that is really not that long of a time, but I had gotten used to Arches Platine and it's quick 5 minute wash time! But, I will gladly sacrifice the time because 140# gives the most brilliant blue AND has the best texture for my prints.

I am SO happy with how this one turned out.  *Sorry for the glare, the print was drying

Since I am not keeping my prints blue it is a good thing that they turn an amazing eggplant-navy-purple color when I tone them. Yes, I just made up my own color :)

After tonight I am MUCH more motivated to make more cyanotypes.  Before I was just so overwhelmed that I just didn't know what to do with myself.  All I needed to do was just start coating paper and that feeling of accomplishing something fixed everything!

Tomorrow I plan on exposing all the paper I coated - that is my goal at least :)