Printed in the dark for once, and the paper finally stopped lying to me

Every cyanotype I make gets developed in sun and seawater, and that is usually beautiful. This week I did a set in the dark, under my own hands, timing the exposure second by second instead of letting the sky decide.

I had been avoiding it because I thought losing the sun would flatten everything. It did the opposite. Four prints of a scallop net, all of them finally the blue I keep seeing in my head and never quite got on paper, that deep cold blue the sea goes in January when nobody is in it.

I have been printing for years and I still cannot explain why the same formula, the same paper, gives me a different blue depending on the day. But now I know I can hold the door shut myself when I need to.

The sun is back tomorrow. I will go back to the beach with the paper and let it do what it wants. It just feels good to know I am not only waiting for weather anymore.

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Ananya Iyer·3w

The bit about the colour you see in your head and never quite get on paper, that's the whole game isn't it. I paint old Bangalore houses, the ones coming down for apartments, and I have a particular morning light in mind that I've been chasing for two years. Every time I think I've got it, it's slightly off.

Interesting that taking the sun out gave you more control, not less. I'd have made the same assumption as you, that the sky is doing half the work. But I suppose with cyanotype the sun is also deciding for you, and you're never sure afterwards which part was you and which part was the weather. Timing it yourself means the good ones are actually yours.

That January blue, the sea with nobody in it. I know exactly the shade you mean. Would love to see the scallop net ones if you ever post them.

Karen Wessel·3w

The morning light thing, yes. I have a version of that with a field behind my parents' place, that flat gold light maybe twenty minutes after sunrise, and I've painted it four times now and every one is a little too orange. My husband keeps saying they look fine and I keep saying that's not the point 😅

Two years on one light though. Do you work from photos you took, or from memory? I've started wondering if I do better from memory because the photo corrects me too early.

Inês CostaOP·3w

From memory, mostly. I have the photographs and I look at them once, maybe twice, and then I put them away, because you are right, they correct you too early. The camera remembers the colour and forgets the cold. What I want back is the January feeling, not the January hex code.

And the field behind your parents' place, four oranges and none of them right. Your husband is not wrong and he is not answering the question you asked. That is the loneliest part of it, I think, being the only one who can see the gap.

Keep the four bad ones. They are the map.

Inês CostaOP·3w

Yes, exactly that. The sun makes the print and then takes the credit, and you never really learn your own hand that way. In the dark it is only me and the timer, and if it comes out wrong I cannot blame the weather. Terrifying for about ten minutes, then a relief.

The houses coming down for apartments, that stays with me. You are painting something that will not be there to check against, so the light you are chasing is already memory before the paint dries. Maybe that is why it will not sit still on the paper. Two years is not long for a light like that.

When you do get close to it, do you keep the near-misses? I have a drawer of almost-right blues and I have stopped being angry at them.

Ramesh Jha·3w

I understand this feeling well, ji. In our Mithila work also, the colour we hold in the mind never comes exactly on the paper. We make our own pigments from flowers, from lamp black, from the bark, and each batch is a little different, so sometimes the fish is the green of the pond in my village and sometimes it is not. My mother used to say the colour is not only in the brush, it is in the hand and in the day. So what you found by taking the sun out of it, that your own hands could hold the thing steady, this is a true win. Four prints of the same net, all of them the blue you were seeing, that is not small. Keep that dark method also for certain work, no need to leave the seawater behind. 🙏

Niall Doherty·3w

The bit about the hand and the day, that landed. I carve lino, so it's black ink and white paper and you'd think there's nothing to argue about, but there is. Same block, same ink, and some mornings the pull comes off flat as a wet sock and other mornings it's got a life to it, and I've never been able to put my finger on why. Your mother knew. The colour isn't in the brush at all, it's in the day you're having.

Also, making your own pigments from flowers and lamp black is a proper job. I've enough trouble keeping the ink off my sleeves.

Inês CostaOP·3w

A wet sock, yes. That is exactly it, and I am glad it is not only me. Lino is honest work in a way cyanotype is not, there is no sky to blame and still the day gets into the print.

The thing I keep circling is that we call it a bad day and reach for the technique, when maybe the technique was fine and we were just somewhere else. Hard to sell that to anyone funding a show, of course.

And the sleeves, I gave up on that years ago. My aprons are a museum of every colour I have ever mixed. It stopped being a problem the day I stopped pretending they were meant to stay white.

Inês CostaOP·3w

Your mother was right, and I think she knew something the rest of us spend years learning. My father mended nets his whole life and he could tell a knot by feel in the dark, the same way you must know a batch of pigment before it touches the paper.

The green of the pond in your village and the green that sometimes comes out instead. I like that you do not call the second one a mistake. My four blues, they were all the same net, and none of them is the January sea exactly. Close. But they are mine now, in a way the sun's version never was.

Tell me, when a batch of pigment goes its own way, do you keep the painting or start again?