I’ve been wanting to experiment with turmeric sun printing and finally found the time to play. Turmeric is only one of the vegetable juice/powders you can use for sun printing. I can’t wait until I have enough red beets to try beet printing. YouTube has some good videos on the process.
It’s easy to prepare the paper, mix turmeric with alcohol like rubbing alcohol or vodka, strain, then paint or soak the paper with the mixture. Let it dry in a dark place.
Then just like cyanotype sun printing, place your plants, cover with glass or secure, then let the sun beat down for 4-6 hours.
I tried two fixatives, baking soda or borax. The baking soda gave a redder cast to the print. Paper also played a big part. I grabbed some old stationary samples from my art director days and you can really see the difference in the papers.
I do suggest pressing and drying the plants before printing. Moisture gathered under the glass or plastic during the process in the sun. Didn’t seem to make a difference, but did warp the paper a bit.
And, I need more pieces of glass or plexiglass…
I made a water and baking soda or borax bath in a baking tin. Just submerged the paper until the image appeared. After being in the sun the paper is pale yellow and the image is slightly darker. The fixitive bath darkens the image. Fun.
This is so cool! I would love to try cyanotyp sun printing, but Im not sure I can get the things used for that here in Sweden.
But this I can try! We have both turmeric and beets here! Looking forward your beet printing!
Now I need to get home and look at youtube. Thanks for sharing your prints!
I just looked at beet juice prints and you have to leave in the sun for a week! When my beets are larger and we have enough, I do want to try.
We are growing red, striped, golden, and white beets. I love them fried or oven roasted.
Thank you for sharing your process and results, they are all so pretty!
Congratulations! Your Anthotype Prints are a Featured Project this week!