On October 9th 2022, after a cloud-forced reschedule, we hosted our first workshop. Artist Filippa Edghill taught us the art of making ethereal deep blue images through cyanotype.

This technique was originally created in 1842 to make blue prints by using UV light to imprint shapes onto paper coated with the cyanotype chemical, hence why we needed the sunshine.

On a clear skied Sunday, 15 of us spent the afternoon foraging for leaves, flowers, and berries by the river in Pays Basque, SW France. Then, in a makeshift dark room created in a 400-year-old barn we meticulously created arrangements of our harvest on our cyanotype paper.

We emerged back into the sun to expose our creations, letting them leave their imprint before washing and drying. Filippa shared with us the nuances of this seemingly simple technique, from placement and timing, to how to use shadow and make double exposures.

The result was other worldly scenes, created both from well followed steps as well as happy accidents.

This will be the first of many workshops in which we learn together as a community about the diverse creative ways we can connect more deeply with nature.

About the artist

Filippa Edghill is a multidisciplinary artist, as well as mother and likely fairy. She uses paint, ceramic, photography and much more to explore feminine energy and her surrounding natural worlds.

Being born in Sweden with Barbadian blood gives Filippa an appreciation for the full spectrum of nature, the bitter dark to the balmy and bright. This is palpable in how her work plays with light and dark, which is why we are so grateful to have learnt such an established creators’ techniques in using sunlight to render deep blue images. 

Having called Basque country home for the better part of a decade, Filippa taught us in the countryside next to the medieval town of Sauveterre-de-Béarn.