Introducing Chemigraphs: Abstract Cyanotypes with Added Chemistry. Part 3

In the first two parts of this series, we explored how dilution, exposure time, and moisture can dramatically shift the tonal and colour range of cyanotypes. In this third instalment, Caroline Roberts pushes further by introducing everyday household chemicals into the mix – salt, alcohol, washing soda – each creating unpredictable, expressive effects. What began as an attempt to “address the blue” evolved into a new way of working, where experimentation itself became both process and product.

Writer and photography / Caroline Roberts

Read the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) before attempting to use chemicals and use the correct safety equipment.

In parts 1 – Going Beyond Blue to Explore Cyanotype Variables: Dilution, Exposure, and Moisture and 2 – Working Wet: Techniques and Effects in Super-Wet Cyanotypes of this series we looked at the potential for expanding the color and tonal range of cyanotypes through variations in chemical dilution, mixing ration, and moisture levels. In this next part, we’ll add various household chemicals to the mix.

In 2013, in a studio visit, I was told I would “need to address the blue” of the cyanotype process I was newly enamoured with. I started adding different chemicals to my pieces to try to achieve other colors.

These early attempts weren’t successful in finding color, but they did start an experimental way of working that is now my entire artistic practice.

The quest for color, and accompanying moments of discovery, are the process AND the work.

Color has always been a major element in my work: I use processes that have naturally restricted palettes, and a big part of my efforts in recent years have gone into expanding those palettes. I’m looking for colors within the inherent color of the process or paper – from palest lavender grey to aqua to deepest cobalt in cyanotypes, for example. My palette has developed through testing of materials and more than a few lucky discoveries. I test for colors methodically, and yet they are still so context and moment-dependent that they are as elusive as shadows.

My first experiments involved adding some basic household ‘chemicals’ to the mix, as well as inks and watercolor paints. Salt, rubbing alcohol and water sprays had an interesting effect and were common additions in my work in those early days. My working method became this crazy mess of chemistry. Sometimes the results were interesting, and sometimes they were not.

For some time, many others and I have been making images with and of the photochemistry itself. This is why I think we are in need of a new term, for work in which there is no transparency, no object, no ‘localizing substance’, just chemistry that is either in itself light-sensitive, or is applied to a light-sensitive surface. Either way, it is the chemical interactions that form the image, just as an object is required for a photogram, or a negative/transparency for a lens-based photographic print. The term chemigraph is what I propose, and it seems a good extension of the existing term chemigram. Where the chemical application is (somewhat) controlled on a chemigram by a resist or ‘localizing substance’, it is not controlled at all on the chemigraph except by the way in which the ‘chemigrapher’ chooses to apply it, in the same way that drawing (-graph) is more freeform than writing (-gram).

Handling materials safely – gloves, work outdoors etc.

Warning: this is a very wet process that is prone to dripping all over you and your surroundings. Some tips on safety and protecting your work area:

• Don’t do any of these steps in a food preparation area
• Wear gloves and an apron or dark clothing
• Wear shoes and long pants or be ready to have blue drips down your legs and on your toes
• Protect your working and exposing areas with sheeting (plastic or cotton)
• Use a shallow, flat-bottomed tray to hold the coated paper, or coat on a flat surface where you intend to expose the work
• If you are trying a new combination, work in a well-ventilated area, or outside
• Read the Medical Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for any chemicals you use.

The chemigraphs process

See the previous article on the super-wet cyanotype for images of each step.

1. Soak your paper, submerging it fully in clean water for 10-15 minutes.
2. Briefly blot the paper to remove excess water.
3. Put the paper in a shallow tray or coat it in the exposure area to avoid dripping solution everywhere. Use a hake brush to coat the paper. The exposure surface needs to be as level as possible to avoid runoff, but some pooling of solution is inevitable. I usually lay the soaked paper outside where I want to expose it, and then coat it. Use any dilution and ratio of Potassium Ferricyanide and Ferric Ammonium Citrate that you want.

4. 

   Now we add other substances – water spritzes, salt, rubbing alcohol, and washing soda. I like using salt crystals of varying sizes, from table salt grains to big crystals that might go in a salt grinder. If I’m using a very dilute solution as the initial coating, I might add droplets of a stronger dilution in some areas to create contrast.

5. Expose the paper in full sun for as long as possible between 10 am-3 pm. You cannot use glass until the paper has dried, so make sure that you are exposing in an area sheltered from any wind.
6. Wash the print as you would for any other cyanotype print – I wash for 10 minutes in running water. The colors change A LOT, so if you particularly love an unwashed piece, you may want to scan or photograph it before washing.

   

   

   

7. Let your piece dry – the colors will change as it dries and oxidizes.

Examples and Ideas

Water
Generally best added once the coated paper is exposing in the sunshine. Water spritzes and drops can be applied at any point in the exposure.

Salt
The effect of salt depends on the grain size but, generally, the salt repels the solutions as it absorbs water and dissolves, leaving little white stars after exposure. Sometimes an orange ring appears around the salt grain. Bigger grains often get a dark outline of concentrated solution.

Alcohol
Applied in large drips it breaks down the paper sizing, either repelling the cyanotype chemistry, or absorbing extra – very unpredictable and interesting results. Sometimes it is difficult to wash effectively where the paper has absorbed the solution right through the fibers. Applied in a light spritz it repels the water-based cyanotype, leaving speckles.

Washing Soda
Bleaches areas as they expose and as the powder dissolves. Interesting pale yellow stars or spreading flower forms. Also interesting to combine with an acid, such as vinegar, on the paper surface.

Keep good notes on anything you do. Sir John Herschel numbered his papers before starting and then kept his notes on each in a separate lab book – a system that I have adopted since my visit to his archive. My previous practice of making notes on the back before starting an exposure rapidly descended into chaos since I often changed my mind and then couldn’t write those changes on the back of the wet paper.

Between the dilution of each chemical, the ratio of the two, and the chemical additives, the range of color for the cyanotype has increased measurably, and I think I can now say that I have “addressed the blue” of the process. I still have many questions and years of experimenting ahead of me however! To quote Sir John Herschel:

“The most singular and apparently capricious varieties of coloration and discoloration however arise (as is so frequently the case in photographic experiments) from different dosage of ingredients, order of washes, etc., so as to make the study of the phenomena in a high degree complicated.”

If you try something with this process, tag your results on Instagram with the hashtags #chemigraph and #superwetcyanotype – let’s see where our explorations take us. This process can be used quite easily with objects for photograms, but using it with a transparency? In the next article, we’ll address that question and look at ways to use very simple transparencies with this chemically intense process.

The 5-part experimental cyanotype series

In this 5-part experimental cyanotype series, Caroline Roberts explores how variations in dilution, exposure, and moisture can expand the creative potential of cyanotypes. Based on her research and studio practice, the series focuses on material and process-based experimentation beyond traditional methods.

• Part #1 – Going Beyond Blue to Explore Cyanotype Variables: Dilution, Exposure, and Moisture – introduces her initial experiments – systematically varying wet, dry, and soaked paper conditions, as well as chemistry dilution and exposure settings – to establish a base for further testing.
• Part #2 – Working Wet: Techniques and Effects in Super-Wet Cyanotypes – explores what she calls the “super-wet” cyanotype: highly fluid chemistry used to create photograms with differing object weights and absorbency, but without adding other chemicals.
• Part #3 – Introducing Chemigraphs: Abstract Cyanotypes with Added Chemistry – focuses on chemigraphs – abstract works created by introducing reactive materials to the cyanotype mix, altering colour and texture during exposure and development.
• Part #4 – Combining Cyanotypes, Chemigraphs and Transparencies – details her process for combining dried chemigraph surfaces with simple transparency overlays, particularly text-based elements used in her publications Memoranda and Daybook.
• Part #5 – Cyanotype Layering: Chemigraphs Followed by Contact Prints – looks at combining these approaches – layering chemigraphs and transparency cyanotypes through multiple exposures and different coatings – to create complex, multi-process images.

This series is both a visual record and a technical resource for artists working with cyanotype, offering practical insights and encouraging further material investigation. To get notified when cyanotype articles are published, subscribe to the Cyanotype Newsletter.

Caroline Roberts, with a background in Chemical Engineering and an MFA in Painting, creates experimental, camera-less work exploring nature and climate. Her art has been widely exhibited and supported through residencies at BOX13, The Printing Museum, and Penland.