Delft Agapanthus (cyanotype painting framed to 35 x 28")
Located in Oakland, CA
This unique multistep technique is a combination of a painting and a photograph or monotype. Cyanotypes are a kind of alternative photographic process from the 1800s. The chemicals are different from those used in black and white photography. The light-sensitive chemicals can be used to print blue and white photographs from a large negative or a person can capture the silhouette of solid objects rather like an x-ray in blue and white. In her Delft Garden series, artist Christine So first drew the outline of a plant in pencil and then painted it in a dark room —not paint– but with the cyanotype light-sensitive emulsion. When the painting had dried, she arranged plants on top of the painted silhouette in a pattern that would leave gaps like lace, carefully moved the entire bundle outside while still covered and then exposed the pattern multiple times at different angles to the sun, to achieve various shades of blue and white. The heavy cotton watercolor paper then needed to be thoroughly rinsed in order to stop the darkening process. The silhouette here is of the Giant California Tree...
2010s Contemporary Still-life Paintings
Mixed Media, Rag Paper, Monotype, Photogram
