A month back I showed some 8X10 cyanotype blueprints I cooked up using some off the shelf “sun print” paper. Since then, I’ve been tinkering with larger formats and more handmade stuff. I’ve gotten reasonably proficient at making 12X18 prints, using watercolor paper and special chemicals that are mixed and then painted onto the paper. It took a good long while to find a print shop that would even try to print off large format transparencies, but I’ve got the whole system up and running now. Here are some of the first “production run” (i.e. all the basic bugs worked out of the system). Larger prints may be possible in the future… the print shop is getting a larger printer, so large format transparencies should be possible. The only part I’m displeased with is the need to use watercolor paper (a whole bunch of different papers were tried, most were spectacular failures), since the result is a lot thicker and stiffer than old-school aerospace industry blueprints.
Since these are very much hand-made, each one would be different. Unlike stuff printed digitally, each would vary in terms of consistency and shading and whatnot. But as pure art I think they’re pretty spiffy.
Would there be interest in these, and others? How does $10 each plus shipping (rolled in a tube, I believe) sound?
UPDATE: Here is a collection of diagrams I’m thinking of doing as 12X18 cyanotype blueprints. I have a bunch more diagrams that I think would make fine blueprints, but at a wider aspect ratio…meaning longer paper than I can (currently) do.
