| Creating Creative Cyanotype Books

Guided by artist Rachel Church, spend a week in Maine creating cyanotype photographs and photograms and turn them into an artist’s book of your own design.

Cyanotype in books has a long history… in fact, the very first book with photographic images was created with cyanotype! Today, cyanotype is a great choice for making images for artist’s books because of its affordable materials, control over paper options, and low toxicity. The imperfect and exploratory nature of the process combined with the ability to create images from both negative and physical objects allows for creative dialog to take place between the artist and medium, leading to engaging, one-of-a-kind artist’s books.

During the week, you will learn some basic methods to make cyanotype photographs and photograms in the Haas Alternative Photo Lab and out in the natural sunshine, a variety of artist’s book structures, and how to combine your new, blue images into a finished artist’s book of your own design. Techniques for combining other media with cyanotypes will also be discussed and explored, such as collage, drawing, embroidery, and hand lettering, as well as approaches to creating your own low-cost, low-equipment, cyanotype set-up at home. 

(Note: We will not be using the letterpress in this course.)

Your week will be filled with making cyanotypes, book form demonstrations, time for image and book making exploration, and sharing ideas and in-progress work, culminating in a final, finished artist’s book at the end of the week! No bookmaking or photography experience is required. All basic supplies are provided, but for your final book, you may want to bring specific materials you know that you like to use, such as favorite papers, pens, markers, paint, and collage materials, as well as images/objects/ideas that you may want to use as inspiration or content for your final book project. A laptop computer and digital camera (or phone capable of taking images) may be helpful but are not required.

Images are subject to copyright.