Anthrotypes, Anyone?

While browsing the Internet on the topic of the anthrotype process, I learned that as early as 1816 people began to notice that that various plant materials could stain paper, and some bleached away in the sun rather quickly. Other plants, not so much. People are curious and prone to experimentation, so by 1842 Sir William Herschel was writing about a way to coat paper with a slurry of crushed plant material, letting it dry in the dark, arranging objects on the paper, and then setting it in the sun until the exposed areas bleached away. Left behind would be the shadows of the objects, stained in colors often complimentary to whatever colors remained in the paper. Since the prints took days or even weeks to make, and would continue to fade in the light, the process fell from favor as a commercial endeavor.

Even though there are lists of plant materials that work and those that are sketchy, literally thousands of plants have yet to be explored! Your name could be the next to be added to the history of anthrotype research!

Outside of staining your hands, the workspace, and work clothes, it is a mostly safe process. Just take precautions to protect yourself and your work area. Oh, and stay away from poisonous saps! Or, perhaps, use poison oak leaves to make your mark on the art world. Here’s a link to a quick “how to” with additional links to instructional publications.

Since it is a process that involves several steps, thoughtfully and carefully done by hand, it can be a healing ritual that puts the artist into a flow state. Caleb Cole’s In Lieu of Flowers project is an example. Caleb grows roses, uses the petals to make an emulsion to coat paper, then uses that paper to paper to print out memorial portraits of trans people who have been murdered in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. When moving the contact printing frames to keep them in the sunlight over the days or weeks it takes, eye contact is made, lives are honored, and grieving occurs.

It’s a big project. We murdered over one hundred trans individuals in 2020 and 2021.

Taya Ashton and Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín (details) self-portraits, anthrotypes by Caleb Cole, from the In Lieu of Flowers website