Cyanotype is a printing process. You coat paper (or fabric, wood or other substrate) with a chemical solution and when you expose it to UV light and then rinse it off in cold water, it makes gorgeous rich cyan prints. You can use it to make photo prints by placing a negative on top of the chemically-treated surface, or you can make a photogram by placing an object on the surface. Wherever the object acts as a resist and blocks the UV light, the blue colour does not develop.
I’ve known about cyanotype prints forever, but it wasn’t until I saw someone on instagram making cyanotype prints on rocks that my curiosity engine was fully engaged. Ironically, immediately after I picked up the necessary solution at a craft store we had the dimmest, darkest week of spring weather with a full six days of heavy dark clouds. The good news is that I had plenty of time to think of things to play with, and then the sun came out and the adventures began!
I painted the cyanotype solution on a variety of surfaces to experiment – inexpensive watercolour paper, some linen fabric from my stash, some cardstock gift tags, and of course some rocks. This was my first day of results.
The dandelion didn’t turn out quite like I had expected but I could see both why it didn’t turn out and where to work on improvements. And then the fun really began!
I’d started collecting interesting plants in the yard (which conveniently has a large diversity of both weeds and native plants, and while the neighbours might have opinions about how overgrown it is, has been very convenient for collecting specimens) and pressing them in waxed paper. There is a piece of glass from an used Ikea photo frame pressing down on the maple leaves, but everything else is just resting on the treated surface. Aside from the botanicals, I used all sorts of random things for resists – old keys, medicine bottles, beads, scrapbooking letters, coins.
Once I had a feel for the process, I started trying out different materials and being more deliberate with my compositions. These two with the sea glass and the buttons were my favourites of day one.
I find it interesting that the blue, green and clear/white pieces have the same basic transparency. But I’m absolutely fascinated at how the cyanotype shows 3D texture – when the object has depth, you can actually perceive it!
Safe to say that this is the beginning of a fun new adventure – so much so that I added it to my list of summer 2025 microadventures! I spent quite a few creative hours on this, learned a whole bunch of new things and even spent some time in the sunshine – exactly what the microadventure project is about.
There are a few more photos and videos of my process in this reel I posted on Instagram (my most viral to date LOL):
So of course I’m obsessed with cyanotype now. Have you played with it? The algorithms in my social media are suddenly feeding me nothing but beautiful Prussian Blue artwork, but it does seem like a lot of crafty folks I know have been inspired to try this around the same time. Maybe the nearly two-centuries-old analogue process of cyanotype is the hot crafting trend of 2025?