Well I was getting no where with the original Habib Saidane CMC formula so I mixed in some Mike ware’s cyanotype formula instead of pigment. Its like magic! For one thing, I learned that CMC melts at a respectively ungodly high temp…274C. It decomposes at that temperature rather than melt. So anything trapped in it will definitely survive temperatures much better than gelatine. Knowing that then makes it clear that the only way to clear it is thru dissolving in water. We may even be able to coat in CMC and then heat gun it for a nice finish… I will try that later. As a test, I overcooked this cyanotype, then I used ammonia to bleach it, then I used sulfamic acid to bring back the blue and stop the bleaching… All this without actually clearing and loosing chemicals in the wash. (Not my photo that I took myself of me)
Here’s the image dry right after exposure. Notice the solarization. It came out too dark so I wanted to bleach it a little.
And this is after adding 0.3% Hydrogen peroxide. Definitely overexposed.
And here it is after adding tap water and spraying ammonia into the water as a bleach.
And finally adding a little sulfamic acid (home depot tile cleaning acid). The blue is back but with the details back. Its actually pretty cool that I was able to do this.
And a little zoom into the face to see the detail…
