Chance Does Not Favor the Unprepared Anthotypist

Today's report from Emmanuel College is bitter sweet (mostly bitter). I have been working with a purple flower emulsion obtained from an annual flower planted around campus (that's the sweet part; it is a really beautiful pigment) which I decided to combine with a botanical positive transparency of the actual flower. The paper I coated represents about 8 coats on a 16 x 20 sheet of paper (which used up about 100 cc of purple solution). A brief downpour while I was making green chile enchiladas for the artist dinner (my turn to cook) caused a bit of water to reach the paper inside a 16 x 20 picture frame and destroy the negative. I am attempting to recoat the paper to minimize the water marks but the negative will have to be reprinted. There was a barely visible trace of the anthotype image on the paper when I took the picture out of the frame to ascertain the amount of water damage. I am out of purple so it will have to be some of the red rose petal emulsion on top of the purple. More purple emulsion could be made but I am running out of days with which to make my exposures here in Boston.
I'll sleep on it. Pictures of the little tragedy and how my decision may have made things worse tomorrow.

perhaps something in purple?

Here is the second anthotype taken down from the window last Thursday. A few reviews alluded to drawing characteristics. It is a photogenic drawing (in purple). The iris petal emulsion was applied drop by drop (yes, I’m nuts) onto Kochi washi paper. Hence the pattern. The pajama was red fleece with trains and no name on it. If you have a suggestion for a title, I’m all ears.

BTW, I have been adding a dash of citric acid as a preservative to my latest flower pigment emulsions (in solution). Today I noticed that the red roses I was grinding up returned to their warm red shade with citric acid instead of the cooler red / purple with just water.

my color purple handiwork, part I

These are the beginnings of my attempt to continue the sleepwear sleepwere sleepwhere series (the title is morphing). The first test at making an anthotype emulsion from the small purple flowers yielded a dilute, blue liquid. Friday I hunched over and picked about 260 grams of flowers off which I have been stripping the petals this weekend.

 halfway through the bag on Sunday

I've gone through the bag, frozen the petals, thawed them out, crushed them down a bit and now they are re-freezing. Tomorrow I should have a nice slurry to add ethanol to pull the pigment out which I will filter and hopefully have enough to coat some large pieces of watercolor paper. At least one big enough to lay a polyester sleep robe with a paisley pattern on it. Now I really do need to look at the work of Jim Dine.

stripped, frozen, and crushed

the color purple

If there is one good thing about letting the wild reclaim the backyard (to a degree) is that I don't have to go very far for potential pigments for anthotype.

Today I successfully mashed up and pulled out the pigment from these small purple flowers sprouting all over the front and backyards. I collected about twenty flowers, stripped off the petals and immersed them in Mr. Boston rum. Not seeing any color migrate to the alcohol, I poured the mix into my mortar and pestle (the darkroom one, not the kitchen's) and worked it until I had a purplish heterogeneous mixture. Pictures tomorrow. In the next few days I am going to harvest all of the purple flowers and place them in tubs with a bit of water and let the wonders of freeze/thaw fracture work its wonders in (and out of) our basement freezer. 

The next anthotypes will be the color purple.