The excitement of printing cyanotypes can quickly feel limited when confined to the royal blue tones that the regular process presents. However, cyanotype “sun-prints” are not limited to the these tones. This is thanks to the tannins in natural foods, such as coffee, tea, and red wine.
When paired with the emulsion left from a regular cyanotype, the tannins in these three substances can tone your prints into a variety of new colors.
What You’ll Need:
- Regularly Developed Cyanotype Print- See how to make one in my previous post here.
- Bleach or Washing Soda
- Coffee/Black or Green Tea/Red Wine. These all have a high concentrate of tannins!
- Tray or container for each chemical/substance
- Somewhere to dry your prints
*If you would rather watch the process than read about it, check out my TikTok video below:
Bleaching Your Print
This step can be completed before or after toning your cyanotype. It helps to preserve detail, and is necessary for changing the color of the blues.
I filled my container with water, to dilute a tablespoon of bleach. Then, I soaked my three prints for this experiment.
Your cyanotype print should be almost invisible by the time you remove it from the bleach bath. Only the deepest of blues should remain. For me, this took roughly 10 minutes.
After removing the print from the bleach, rinse it with cold water to remove any remaining chemicals.
Toning Your Print
Before placing your print into any of the following liquids, make sure to saturate the cyanotype print with cold water. This will allow particles in the following substances to bond and penetrate the print evenly.
Coffee Tannin
Brew enough coffee to cover your print. Make sure that the coffee is extra concentrated. It doesn’t need to be hot; the coffee I used was room-temperature ground coffee left over in the coffee pot from the morning. Cheap instant coffee is also perfect for this process.
Soak your print in the coffee for anywhere from 2-8 hours. Check on it periodically- every hour or two- until your print is at its desired level of development. Mine took about 4 hours.
Coffee may stain the whites in your paper/fabric, but I found minimal discoloration in my muslin fabric cyanotype print.
Results are pictured below:
I’m a fan of the dark gray that this method of naturally toning produces, but I wish there was more mid-tone detail (compare side of chimney and highest slanted-roof between the two images).
Keep in mind that this original photo was shot on a high-grain 35mm film, so a print made from a digital photo would certainly have more detail.
Black Tea Tannin
Brew enough concentrated black tea to fully coat your cyanotype print. I used four black teabags in approximately 24oz. of water. Your tea can be room temperature or hot. However, you must brew the tea the same day- the tannins will break down if you wait any longer.
Soak your print in the black tea until the image develops to your liking. For me, this took just under an hour with hot tea.
Results are pictured below:
With the black tea toner, I was impressed by much more significant mid-tone detail. I like the look that the black tea created best in this experiment, however the staining of the whites was my one caveat.
Keep in mind that this original photo was shot on a high-grain 35mm film, so a print made from a digital photo would certainly have more detail.
Red Wine Tannin
Fill your container with enough red wine to fully coat your cyanotype print. Have a glass, while you’re at it.
I found that toning with red wine takes much longer than naturally toning cyanotypes with coffee or black tea. I left my print soaking for 7 hours, and you could hardly make out the print by the time it was done. The image was never revitalized from the bleaching process.
I plan to try this method again, though I intend on wine-soaking before the bleach step next time.
Results are pictured below:
As mentioned above, the red wine tannins never caused my image to resurface after bleaching. Surprisingly, the wine didn’t stain the muslin fabric either. While this loss could potentially be categorized under “repercussions of purchasing $3 wine”, the issue may have alternatively been that the print needed more time to soak. It is totally plausible that 7 hours wasn’t enough time. I will play around with the process of red wine toning my cyanotypes in the near future.
Rinse Your Print & Hang to Dry
When your prints are dry, you can press them flat in a heavy book for a day or two, then frame them!
Leave a Reply