For my homage to Anna Atkin’s books of cyanotypes — which will be a part of an upcoming issue of Refilstigr — I picked a native fern I found while bicycling in the hills not far from where we live. It is a Dryopteris arguta, commonly named coastal woodfern.
The natural habitatDryopteris arguta in the landscape. Photo: Martin HøyemPreparing the paper I’m applying a 1:1 mix of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate to watercolor paper which is already cut to size. Photo: Martin HøyemExposing The fern on top of the prepared paper inside of the contact print frame, getting exposed to sunlight for seven minutes on an early afternoon in late October. Photo: Martin HøyemFixing After the exposure is finished I used to rinse it under running water in the bathroom sink, but I’ve found that I only need to leave the print for 10-15 minutes in a water-filled tray. Photo and print: Martin HøyemEarth rotation and photography Some early trials I did resulted in blurry images, and I hypothesize that it was because I left them for too long in the sun. (The earth revolves, and this means the angle of the light coming from the sun changes during exposure. Because of the thickness of the fern leaf, there is a tiny height difference between the paper and the fern in the contact print frame. If I leave the photo too long exposing in the sun, that height difference creates a blurry edge. At least, that’s my hypothesis.) The image above was exposed for seven minutes, which seemed to give a fairly sharp image. Photo and print: Martin HøyemFern-colored? I needed to add a title to each print, which I would handwrite with fountain pen. I have mixed an ink previously, which I named Woodvardia after Woodvardia fimbriata — the giant chain fern. I think it would be a natural ink choice for this artwork. (For more on that particular ink, see the image caption on top of this page: “Fountain pen archival records”) Photo: Martin HøyemI ♥ hearts Not to get off track, but isn’t that heart shaped breather hole in the fountain pen nib THE BEST!?! Fuck yeah, uncredited fountain pen nib designer!!! Photo: Martin Høyem
Bibliography
Atkins, Anna and Anne Dixon. Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns. England, 1853.
Hershey, David R. “Doctor Ward's Accidental Terrarium.” In The American Biology Teacher 58(5):276-281.
Hooker, William Jackson. Garden ferns; or, Coloured figures and descriptions, with the needful analyses of the fructification and venation, of a selection of exotic ferns adapted for cultivation in the garden, hothouse, and conservatory. London: Lovell Reeve, 1862.
Moore, Thomas. The ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1857.
Whittingham, Sarah. The Victorian Fern Craze. Oxford: Shire Publications, 2009.
