About the Artist
Welcome to my workshop! My name is Rae Hood, founder of The Forest Blues. I’m a devoted Seattle-based artist, portrait photographer, and plant lover. The Forest Blues fuses my passions for photography and printmaking with my love for the historic process of cyanotype. Each piece I make is a community invitation. Let’s explore nature more deeply and more playfully. Let’s do it together.
I started The Forest Blues to help heal our severed connection to the natural world around us. My patrons become my community collaborators, telling me anecdotes about the plants, trees, and flowers that have influenced their lives. Every plant has a story. When we listen to our landscapes, our added ecological awareness brings with it an increased political consciousness. We are inspired to preserve, proliferate, and cherish what we can. Every piece of my art represents a new growth, a new way to fall more in love with the land we share. We can think more critically about environmental justice and sustainability. We can keep blooming always.
About the Process
Cyanotype is a photography process using the sun’s UV light to produce unique images. Since the nineteenth century, artists have used light-sensitive chemicals to create blue-toned prints using UV light and film. I press the beautiful plants of the Pacific Northwest onto fabric, paper, and clothing, so that these plants themselves act as film when they respond to the sun. My plants leave a shadow-blocked imprint behind–patterns of white, blue, and light blue–showcasing the intricate textures surrounding us in nature.
I’ve developed a process that is year-round and sustainable, embracing the seasonal landscape in and around Seattle.
