The Start of Something New

 That modest little hexagon flower represents a bold new beginning, not just of a textile project, but of my new life.
I was born with a wanderlust, which I've indulged as much as duty and responsibilities have allowed. But for some time, while cognizant of my privilege and grateful of my life's arrangements, I've been restless and bored. I came to feel that I'd been in the same place for too long and I needed to shake things up a bit.
I have ties to the Pittsburgh area, and for many years now I've been back and forth between there and Lancaster frequently. So I decided to move my main base of operations there, and do the back-and-forth in the other direction. I am very grateful that my spouse was fully on board!
We looked at real estate for over a year (we had a great and patient agent), with a longish wish list of desirable attributes, and at last we found what we wanted. So within a very short time frame, we packed up, prepped the old house for sale, and hit the road, and we are now safely ensconced in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh. Our house is a modest mid-century masterpiece, just the right size, with a good vibe and good bones. Parts of it need to be updated, so it will be a work in progress for a while.

 One of the big items on the wish list was of course a studio space. This chaos of boxes shows just of bit of the room. It's a good size, with windows and a door to the back garden and access to a sink. I am looking forward to setting it up and getting back to some serious work.

 I've got a big bank of sunny windows in the kitchen which is making me happy. The whole house is filled with light.

 My sweet and clever old boy is having fun exploring his new territory. I've got standard suburban landscaping out front, and a somewhat wilder vibe out back. Once the weather cools I will have fun tweaking and reshaping things. To the back and side of the lawn there's a sizable patch of woods that makes it feel very private.

 And I have a big apple tree! It's some kind of summer apple, possible a yellow transparent, and it's been dropping apples like crazy. This gorgeous doe comes by several times a day to snack on the windfalls and nap in the shade. The yard is fenced, but she clears it gracefully with little effort. I am resigned to not growing hostas here--luckily I have a bajillion prints of them from the old house.

This has been the longest break from creative work I've had in many, many years. The hand stitching in the first photo represents my first attempts to get back into the groove, both mentally and physically. It felt good to let muscle memory guide my stitching while my mind wandered. I have a long way to go but am very excited at the possibilities. I have new trails to ride, new wild areas to discover, a vibrant city to explore, and a treasure trove of rivers and bridges to photograph. I am leaving things open ended for now and that feels like a good place to be.

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 40

 I made these prints earlier in May, on a nice sunny warm day. They are on my favorite cotton sateen that I treated with the cyanotype chemicals.  I used some of the newly emerging greenery from my perennial beds, including a hosta, and two wood poppy leaves.

 You can see the developing seed pods on this one. It's such an interesting plant.

 I also caught the tail end of the variegated Solomon's seal blooms.

 I could tell right away it was going to be an energetic set of wet cyan prints. Here they are after exposure, but before rinsing out.

 There's a LOT going on here, and I love it.

 The wood poppy leaves and stems have yellow sap in them, so they tend towards a partial eco-print effect.

 This one is looking dark and mysterious at this stage.

 Here are the finished prints. I am just delighted with them.

There's lots of sparkling disturbances in these.

 You can especially see the eco-print effect in the two seed pods here, and on the leaf veins.

 I love the how the tones deepen towards purple on this one.

If you are a regular reader, thanks for stopping by!
If you are new here, you can follow all 40 parts of my wet cyanotype adventure, with all the tips and tricks and images, by clicking on the Wet Cyanotype tab in the top header, or by going here.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 39

 It was time for more spring flowers to get the wet cyanotype treatment. The season on most of these is very fleeting so it's important to pause and appreciate them. First up are some stalks of variegated Solomon's seal in bloom. This is not a particularly showy plant, but it is a very satisfying one to grow. It starts in the spring with pink sheaths on the emerging foliage, develops into lovely variegated stalks, has a brief moment for waxy white flowers, and decays very slowly in late fall, turning translucent along the way.

 Up next was another sprig of bleeding heart, which is having a great run in our mostly cool and damp spring.

 And last but not least is a sprig of lily of the valley. It has a very short bloom season, and some years I've missed observing it entirely. I'm glad I caught it, and the incomparable scent, this time around.

 It was a bright but cloudy day, no direct sun, temperatures in the high 60s Fahrenheit. That's not ideal for maximum wet cyan weirdness, but it is good for exposing delicate flowers. I left them out about 6 hours.

 These are the exposed, unrinsed prints. That green is typical of of a lowish temperature exposure; it looks cool but generally rinses out.

 The purple tones inside the leaf shapes are also typical of this kind of exposure, but they often stay put.

 These last two have some golden speckles around the edges thanks to a bit of soda ash.

 Here are the finished prints. I think they turned out very well. The Solomon's seal looks so elegant, and has just the right amount of coloration across the top.

 This one is also quite pleasing. If I was into giving them fanciful names I would call it Duet.

 This bleeding heart print is a bit crowded, but in the best possible way. There's a lot to look at here.

 The lily of the valley print is very balanced, serene and delicate.

If you are a regular reader, thanks for stopping by!
If you are new here, you can follow all 39 parts of my wet cyanotype adventure, with all the tips and tricks and images, by clicking on the Wet Cyanotype tab in the top header, or by going here.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 38

 I'm a bit short on both time and materials at the moment, but the allure of the bleeding heart in bloom was impossible to resist, so I fit in a few new wet cyanotype prints. The first is 16" x 20", and the second is 10" x 12", both on cotton sateen. These are standard sizes for  me, as they match the glass I have on hand, and are a good size for components for my art quilts.

 I also did a print of the pink dogwood in bloom, because how could I not?

 As I've said before, timing the exposure for delicate flowers is a delicate thing. I want enough sun and heat to work that old wet cyan magic, but no so much that it burns out and overexposes the delicate blossoms.

 For these it meant moving them back and forth between sun and shade a few times until I deemend them done. Total exposure was about 3 hours, in 72F weather. These exposed, unrinsed prints are already looking good.

 I wasn't as worried about the dogwood exposure, because the sepals (the part we think of as the flowers) is fairly thick and tough. However, that same thickness meant it didn't have consistent contact with the fabric, despite using my heaviest pane of glass. In retrospect, it would have benefited from being pressed briefly before setup.

 Here are the finished prints. Both bleeding heart prints turned out just delightful.

 There's lots of good detail, with the just the right amount, to my taste, of wet cyan weirdness.

 I first I was a bit dismayed by the dogwood, it has elements of the dreaded blobiness because of the imperfect contact. But it's growing on me; with the right amount of stitching to delineate the shapes, and maybe some beadwork for the centers of the sepals, and some pebble stitching on the background, I think it could be lovely. So it's going in the "someday" pile and not the "cutter" pile.

I don't do things by the numbers, generally, but it didn't escape my attention that with this post I've exceeded 600 photos of wet cyan works in progress, spread out over 38 blog posts. If you've got a lot of curiosity and some time on your hands, you can read the whole epic saga, in reverse chronological order, by clicking on the wet cyanotype tab at the top, or going here.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 37

 Welcome to part 37 of my ongoing experiments with and documentation of the wet cyanotype process.  I began this batch, on a gorgeous spring day, with an equally gorgeous and newly emerged flowering sprig of bleeding heart.

 I followed that up with an equally beautiful sprig of Japanese andromeda, aka Pieris. This is the third installment I've done this spring, as it has progressed from buds to full bloom.

 And then, because nothing else in in leaf yet, I moved on to two panels of garlic mustard. This is an invasive non-native plant, the scourge of my garden and especially of the woodlands, but it does make for some interesting prints. All of these are on cotton sateen that I treated with the cyanotype chemicals. This time around I didn't use any enhancements, just water. The weather was around 70F and partly cloudy, which sometimes works better than full sun for capturing blossoms.

 Here are the exposed, unrinsed prints. I could tell right away that the cyanotype gods were on my side/I had done a good job with the exposure timing.

 Lots of small brown dots from a bit of eco-printing on these flowers; already beautiful.

 And look at the much-disparaged garlic mustard! The leaves shrank as it exposed, leaving a sort of double outline, and there's just a sterling fire-and-lightning effect on the right.

 There's good stuff going on here also.

 Here are the finished prints. Every so often I think I'm done with this process, I have enough prints already, and then this happens:

 I'm so excited by this batch of prints.

 The ultimate goal for my cyanotype prints is to include them in a larger work of art. These are going to look so great when I add the stitching.

 So fancy and frilly!

If you are a regular reader, thanks for stopping by!
If you are new here, you can follow all 37 parts of my wet cyanotype adventure, with all the tips and tricks and images, by clicking on the Wet Cyan tab in the top header, or by going here.

You can also follow along on your social media of choice:
Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
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