ART DESIGN COMMUNITY
NEED: Old photography paper, clip frames big enough to hold the paper, water, sodium thiosulfate, two trays for photo developing, fresh plants and all sorts, SUNSHINE.
Cameraless photography…or is it just a contact print…? Take some old photographic paper, find yourself a sunny spot, gather interesting objects, plants and curios, prepare a try of rinsing water and another tray of fixative (wearing gloves I chucked a small handful of sodium thiosulfate into the tray and added water…sorry to say, science did not enter the equation).
Keep your photo paper in the black plastic bag and put this bag inside another black bag, remove your paper in a dark corner, or keep both bags as closed as possible while extracting your sheets (one at a time). Put the paper on the board of a clip frame, place plants and objects as you like. They make better contact with the paper if wet. Water, coffee, sun cream…all make different effects and the paper also reacts with the chemicals in the plants. Once your design is finished cover with glass and close the clip frame.
Leave in the sun for as long as you can bear to wait..the longer the better, aim for a minimum half an hour. Shake off your items…if you want to preserve the amazing images you see, scan them or photograph them because when you put them in the fix they will change forever.
Splashing with fix and stop and water also helps bring out purples and splashing with developer will give you blacks, thanks to Neal Vaughan for those tips!
Fix for about 5 minutes and then rinse in water. Leave to dry. Don’t display in direct light as the colours are not permanent.
NOTE: DO NOT EAT OR DRINK while using the chemicals, make sure to wash off your skin immediately if you splash yourself. ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES.
Here is a link to another site about lumen printing
Been attending ceramics classes with my daughter…some of our work below! Learned that “Shino” glaze should always be under other glazes if you want practical, useable pieces, otherwise you have bubbles that break and become very unhygienic, you can see the little craters on the plate in the centre of the plate group, although I do love the effect these cannot be the dinner plates I had in mind!
The Tea Tre (dragon skin tea pot) is the most recent piece…it is a double walled slab build, the pattern is an imprint from a crocheted table cloth. Using white clay, after bisque firing it received a wash of red Iron Oxide, then a dip in Ash glaze, which I then rubbed back to expose areas of clay and red oxide. Finally, I painted some purple oxide wash over the top.
Beyond Enclosure, Acrylic on paper, 2017
