Exploring Anthotypes

I was perusing YouTube the other day looking up information on toning. I ran across a nice little video of making Anthotypes from Paul Bishop. He presents it in a straightforward enough way I thought why not. There are lots of other online resources. 

Before my holidays I ordered some Isopropyl alcohol and Borax and when I returned gave it a try. He used turmeric and I have plenty of the stuff so started with that. I placed about 1/2 gram of turmeric in 100 ml of alcohol. I stirred it well then used a coffee filter to filter out the solids. The result is a yellow liquid of the Curcumin in solution. Curcumin is the chemical responsible for the yellow color of turmeric. 

I sensitized a piece of paper with the tincture. The paper I chose was the backside of some MG Art  300 test prints. It is a cotton rag paper. As such it absorbs a lot of the tincture and I am not certain a thick absorbent paper is best but this is what I tried first. I placed the paper on a baking tin and used the back of a soup spoon to spread the tincture around the paper until I had covered and saturated it evenly. I only used about half the tincture on this first sheet of paper which was 8x8 inches in size. I then left it under the extractor fan/ventilation hood in my kitchen with the fan on to remove the fumes of the evaporating alcohol. The advantage of alcohol is the rapid evaporation. 

The paper dries to a pale yellow. Next I cut a fern frond from my garden and then sandwiched it between the paper and a sheet of glass. I left it under the sun for about 2-3 hours. The areas exposed to the sun turn pale under the ultraviolet light while those shaded by the plant retain the yellow color. This means you get a positive image. If one were to contact print from a sheet of film you would have to start with a positive image. 

I next mixed up some borax solution of 2 grams of borax and 600ml of water. The borax 'fixes' the image by binding the Curcumin to the cotton fibers in the paper. I then washed the paper is water. The borax solution darkens the color slightly and shifts it from yellow towards orange. 

Here is my first result. 

Fern printed with Turmeric

I was looking up information about mordants (chemicals used to bind dyes to fibres). There was mention of ammonia as a dye modifier. I experimented with some scraps and a 10% ammonia solution and even contact with only fumes changed the color to a darker pinkish orange. I tried fuming the print in a covered tray. 

Fuming is a technique I am familiar with from woodworking. It can be used to darken oak or cherry. The tannic acid in the wood reacts with alkali and darkens. Mission or Craftsman furniture often features fumed oak. This is achieved by place the wood in a covered container and ammonia is introduced. After a period of time the wood darkens from the fumes without having to place the chemicals directly on the wood. 

Alas leaving the fumed print out in the air after some time the color returns to very close to the original yellow color. I also tried to apply the ammonia directly to the print but this too faded back to the original color. It seems it needs continuous exposure to maintain the color. 

Other Substances

Next I tried some ‘hot chili powder’. Again I mixed a gram of chili power with 50 ml of isopropyl alcohol and filtered it. I then soaked a sheet of Art 300 cotton paper in the solution. Once it dried under the fume hood I coated it with a second coat. The pepper solution is not as intense in color as the turmeric. 

I then used some wisteria leaves and sandwiched them between the paper and glass and left it in the sunlight for about 4 hours. The light orange color faded where it  was exposed to the sun and an image of the leaves was left. Again I used the borax solution to fix the image in the paper, rinsed it and left it to dry.

The result is a nice subtle orange color. 

Chili pepper powder of wisteria leaves anthotype

Finally I made a print through a positive transparency I created for another set of posts. I used turmeric again on the back of Ilford MG Art 300 paper. The result is quite faint so the film should have more density to get a decent image. 

Turmeric Image

Film image