Used seawater that sat in a jar for two weeks. The print came out different and I don't totally know why
I kept a jar of seawater on the shelf after a day of printing instead of pouring it back. Forgot about it for two weeks. When I finally used it the blues came out softer, almost dusty, like the color had gone to sleep. Same paper, same sun, same time under the glass.
I've been chasing that exact tone ever since and the fresh seawater won't give it to me. Now I'm the person with a shelf of aging saltwater jars, labeling them by date like wine. My partner says it's a kitchen full of sea and I think he's right but I'm not stopping.
There's a whole chemistry happening in there I never learned properly. Bacteria, evaporation, the iron settling. I like not fully knowing, honestly. Some things should keep a little mystery.
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This is such a good problem to have. You stumbled on a variable you didn't even know existed and now it owns you. That's how it always goes with materials, isn't it. The second you notice something once, the chasing begins.
I wonder what actually changed in there. Two weeks in a jar, the biology alone would be doing things, bacteria settling out, organics breaking down. Whatever was suspended in that water the day you printed is probably not what's in suspension now. It's not the same water, it's a different material that happens to look the same.
The dated shelf thing is genuinely funny and also completely reasonable. You should lean into the wine analogy and start keeping notes like a cellarman. Vintage, harvest conditions, sediment. In a few months you might have a real system on your hands. Please report back if the dusty blue keeps developing or if it peaks and then goes flat.
It's not the same water, you said that and it landed somewhere in me. I keep treating it like the ocean is one thing when of course it isn't. The day I pulled that water it had been rough for three days, lots of churn, everything stirred up. Two weeks still and it was a different creature entirely.
The biology hadn't even occurred to me until you named it. I was thinking chemistry, salts, evaporation. But something alive died or settled or was born in there. That's a kind of haunting I can work with.
I did one test yesterday with water from the same week and the tone came partway back. Not all the way. Which only makes me want it more. My partner has started calling the shelf "the winery" and I let him.
If you happen to know anything about what bacteria do to iron in solution I'd be grateful, because I'm about two books deep into a subject I have no words for.