Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Julia Whitney Barnes
Nocturnal Nature Geraniums - Botanical Cyanotype Painting Flowers Bird, 2021-'22

2021

About the Item

In this botanical cyanotype painting in watercolor, gouache, India ink and cyanotype on Arches platine paper, meticulously detailed geraniums, ferns and a hummingbird are depicted in white and pale blue against deep indigo blue background. Signed on verso. Available unframed. Approaching each growing thing with equal importance, be it weed or rare plant, wildflower or cultivar, Julia Whitney Barnes combines several species into single compositions, often to the point where the species of plants depicted are open to interpretation, creating unique blue and white cyanotype prints on thick sheets of cotton paper and then painting the cyanotypes in many layers of watercolor, gouache and ink. Cyanotype is a camera-less photographic printing process invented in 1842 by scientist and astronomer, Sir John Hirschel, to produce a cyan-blue print when a chemistry-coated surface is exposed to sunlight. The first artist to use it was Anna Atkins, who was also a botanist and is cited as the very first female photographer. Through Whitney Barnes’ use of this medium, the artist manipulates physical impressions of plants grown locally in her Hudson Valley garden and other nearby areas, along with intricately cutout photographic negatives. Each selected flower or plant is preserved through a pressing process in which each form is dissected and shaped—akin to the preservation of specimens in a natural history museum—and then laid out in massive flat files in the artist’s attic studio. Because sunlight starts the exposure process within cyanotype chemistry, the artist carefully arranges elaborate compositions by night, utilizing long exposures under natural or UV light to create the final prints.

More From This Seller

View All
Gold Flora Shadows Magnolia - Metallic Botanical Cyanotype Painting Flowers 2023
By Julia Whitney Barnes
Located in Kent, CT
In this contemporary botanical cyanotype painting in watercolor, gouache, India ink, gold pigments and tea-toned cyanotype on cotton watercolor paper, meticulously detailed flowers a...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper, Pigment, Tea

Nocturnal Nature Magnolia - Contemporary Floral Cyanotype Butterfly, 2021-'22
By Julia Whitney Barnes
Located in Kent, CT
In this contemporary floral cyanotype painting in watercolor, gouache, India ink, and cyanotype on Arches platine paper, meticulously detailed flowers, including magnolia, proteus an...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

Gold Flora Cornflowers - Metallic Botanical Cyanotype Painting Plants, 2021-'24
By Julia Whitney Barnes
Located in Kent, CT
In this botanical cyanotype painting in watercolor, gouache, India ink, gold pigments and tea-toned cyanotype on cotton watercolor paper, meticulously detailed flowers, including cor...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper, Tea

Nocturnal Nature Fritillarias, Bleeding Hearts - Botanical Cyanotype, 2021-'23
By Julia Whitney Barnes
Located in Kent, CT
In this contemporary floral cyanotype painting in watercolor, gouache, India ink, and cyanotype on Hot Press watercolor paper, meticulously detailed flowers, including fritillarias, ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

Delights 126 - Contemporary Abstract Shapes Pattern Teal Green Gold, 2024
By June Glasson
Located in Kent, CT
This contemporary painting in ink, gouache and pencil on archival paper is composed of solid shapes surrounded by a pattern of delicate lines and dots in bright teal, luminous golden...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Archival Ink, Gouache, Archival Paper, Pencil

Never Done IX - Contemporary Strong Female Figurative Silhouette Red Teal, 2024
By June Glasson
Located in Kent, CT
This contemporary painting in ink, gouache and pencil on archival paper, is composed of a silhouette figurative form in costume and a headdress suggesting a strong female character h...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Archival Ink, Gouache, Archival Paper, Pencil

You May Also Like

A vase full of Roses. Ink pen, Gouache, and watercolor on paper
By Manuel Santelices
Located in Miami Beach, FL
A new series inspired by architecture, décor and stylish personalities of the world of interior design. The worlds of fashion, society and pop culture are captured in the illustrati...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paint...

Materials

Watercolor, Ink, Gouache, Archival Paper

Triptych From The Love of Andy series. Drawings
By Manuel Santelices
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Movies, TV and magazines are constant source of inspiration. Fame, as fleckring and shallow it can be sometimes, is very intriguing to him. The worlds of fashion, society and pop cu...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paint...

Materials

Gouache, Archival Paper, Ink

“Untitled (PPR 348)” Contemporary Abstract Colorful Geometric Patterned Painting
Located in Houston, TX
Contemporary abstract geometric colorful patterned work on paper by Texas-based artist Max Manning. The work features organic and geometric shapes in pinks, blues, greens, black, an...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

Original-Meeting Van Gogh-Study Master Series-British Awarded Artist-Ink Drawing
Located in London, GB
-In light of new tariffs, we’ve applied a 20% discount off the market price of this piece to support our collectors in facing potential added costs. At the gallery, we work closely w...
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper, Charcoal, Gouache, Acrylic

“Untitled (PPR 367)” Contemporary Abstract Colorful Geometric Patterned Painting
Located in Houston, TX
Contemporary abstract geometric colorful patterned painting by Texas-based artist Max Manning. The work features organic and geometric shapes in red, pinks, blues, yellow, black, an...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

Magic Marij
By Kim Frohsin
Located in Burlingame, CA
Kim Frohsin, Third generation Bay Area Figurative artist began exhibiting in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990s, and in 1993 was included with Nathan Olivera, Manuel Neri and Stephen De...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper, Pencil, Gouache

Recently Viewed

View All