On my third day of attempting to make cyanotypes, I tried again to use the drawing robot to mark time.  I used an old piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper that had been languishing in a cardboard portfolio for years. (more about that in a bit)  I had prepared the paper the morning before, but with the humidity and the necessity to keep the paper sealed in the dark, it had not fully dried yet.  I again placed a layer of acetate that was 20 inches wide over the paper (which is 22″x33″) and selected some music that has a good beat.  In this case, it’s Bombay by El Guincho.  My two children helped with the process.  Fionnuala had the idea to create shade, which I though would be a good thing to try to slow down the exposure, so we used a pop-up diffusion panel from the photo equipment cabinet.

Exposure is the key problem to solve here.  The idea with this piece is that as the drawing progresses, the lines get progressively darker, marking the time that passes.  This time, the effect of time passing is definitely visible and slower than the first time I tried this, maybe a little too slow.  Also, the overall exposure time was not enough, and the image was underexposed.  The drawing robot also hit a couple of snags: first, in a ruch I did not attach the Posca pen very well and it loosened and moved.  The resistance from the pen made the robot stall as it was drawing.  Also, the wet paint made the surface of the acetate slick and the robot lost traction.  So there were times when it was not moving.

Also, the old paper was a problem.  The edges had become brittle and the cyanotype coating was uneven, with more in the middle.  I am not sure why, but the image also faded after it was printed.  I think this has more to do with it being underexposed that

Overall, I see these first two attempts as a proof of concept.  I think that the concept is sound, and I will refine and use this process to create more drawings.  I am excited to do this as a part of my exploration of time.  Changes that I will make include using a different kind of drawing machine (vertical) that won’t rely on wheels to move on the slick surface of the acetate.  I also want to reprogram the machine to make another kind of drawing in order to explore the meaning of time passing.  I’m not sure what the driving principle of the drawing itself will be yet, but I am thinking that it will use some real-time data as a variable.

Here is a video of the process, partly sped up:

Here are images of the process and the print–again, thanks to my children, Fionnuala and Declan for their help!

I also experimented with layering the acetate over one of the cyanotypes.  The one on the rug is for Derin 🙂

And finally, I made a T-shirt for Declan with some leftover chemistry.  It’s to celebrate his learning to swim.  It came out with some weird elements: the very dark tie-dye look, which may be because of some exposure it had while it was in a bundle, or maybe because there was too much solution in some parts: