Cyanotype shinanigins

Hello there all blog friends. I am divulging some cyanotype shinanigins I took part in a couple of years back. I remembered these after the lovely Geninne on her art blog posted some similar images. I was inspired by a lady I read about who was holding an 'Open house' art event. I went to see her work, it was beautiful. So.....I just had to have a go!  The whole process was quite tricky, from finding the chemicals etc, the right paper, glass to sandwich the foliage I wanted to use, and last but not least some UV light in the form of British sunshine, Ha Ha.
I found a brilliant book on the subject,(see above) gathered all the necessary bits, the only real problem (apart from the chemicals being slightly dangerous, cyanide I think??BIG rubber gloves necessary) was not having a darkroom or similar. I ended up in the garage, one dark night, (husband shouting, what are you doing in there, ??) painting the chemical onto watercolour paper, then trying to let it dry before placing in a black bag in another box and then in a draw. The chemical becomes light sensitive once it's painted on,(I like the brush strokes) so it meant waiting till the next day and hoping for sunshine. I wanted to do mainly Christmassy leaves etc, hence the holly you can see. I ended up with allsorts of floral bits in the end.(can you see the honeysuckle?)

It was a big learning curve to be honest. I now know of a place I could do this, with a darkroom and a UV light, I should/ MUST have another go. My only trouble is I'm not flipping fantastic photoshop wise, or I could do something with the images. Still I do like them, I could maybe try painting over like Geninne has, Hmmmn.....perhaps I'll get round to it one day? I do have some mad moments trying out different things, it all makes for good fun!! Hope you like the blues? I find them quite soulfull :)))