Alumni Kim Tillyer publishes her book A Beginner’s Guide to Cyanotype!
Alumni and Designer Kim Tillyer has recently published her book Beginner’s Guide to Cyanotype, beautiful projects to print with light which is out this May! Kim is from North Yorkshire but was born in London, her parents (her father is the artist William Tillyer ) are both from Middlesbrough and both went to Middlesbrough School of Art as it was called then.
“When I was about 13 we moved back north to live near my grandparents in Glaisdale, near Whitby.” Kim started our textiles degree as a mature student in 2005, having dropped out of art school as a teenager “ I spent the next decades trying to find my way back to art via sociology, gardening, designing cards, freelance silk painting, bar work, childminding, being a pre-school assistant and navigating family life with my two children. I graduated with a first, in 2008 and it felt like a fresh start, I was 41.”
Now, almost 16 years since graduating, at 57 she has published her first book! Kim has come a long way since her degree, we spoke to her to find out more about the project and her practice:
Tell us about your new book Beginner’s Guide to Cyanotype, beautiful projects to print with light!
Fast forward 2021 and I’m living in Cumbria trying to make my way as a designer/artist whilst working part time in a lovely bookshop in Grasmere.
I’d just started to rent a studio, with family help, because our housing situation had made working from home difficult. It was a huge gamble but really good timing as it turned out because one day I got an email from Search Press asking if I’d like to write a book about cyanotype. I thought it couldn’t be real, they said they’d been following my Instagram profile and at the time there was definitely a gap in the market for a new book about a process that was growing in popularity.
After graduation I’d started to use cyanotype as a way of printing fabric and paper at home to use in my work. Cyanotype is an historic “alternative” photography process that uses a chemical solution that is sensitive to light; you can coat paper, fabric or other surfaces with this solution and when exposed to sunlight it oxidises and turns blue – Prussian Blue. In 2008 there wasn’t much on the Internet and books were hard to find so I’d worked out my own way of doing things and never really thought of myself as an expert – I still don’t!
I signed the book contract in 2021 and it is finally published on May 30th 2024 so it’s been a long process.
I was asked to create 10 step by step projects which would be accessible to beginners and I did find this hard because I don’t really work in a methodical way and often can’t repeat things that seem to have worked “by chance”. When you do something frequently it becomes second nature and it can be hard to gauge how a total beginner might experience it. I needed to make sure that the projects worked and were accessible and inspiring so I spent a lot of time making a mess and staring out of the window feeling stuck, before refining the projects that made it into the book. Last July I went down to Search Press headquarters in Kent, with all the work I’d done so that it could be photographed professionally step by step and added to my text. Another photographer took styled shots and the editor/design team worked on the layout. After the design layouts were complete I was sent pdfs at various stages of the editing process, and eventually an advance copy of the actual book arrived! Now I just have to hope people buy and like it…
Where can people buy it?
Search Press are one of the major art and craft book publishers in the UK, based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent so it was really exciting to be commissioned by them. The book is published in Australia and the USA as well as the UK. As a bookseller I knew that they had a really good reputation and importantly that they are stocked everywhere so easy for bookshops, galleries and libraries to order. I will also get copies to sell on my website and at events.The great thing is that it’s an affordable paperback and while I’d also love to do a gorgeous hardback art book, I’m pleased that this will be the kind of thing I might have bought when I was just starting out – clear information and inspiration to promote further exploration.
Tell us about your practice!
After 2 and a half years delving into cyanotype its been nice to take a break from the blues, so recent work has included packaging design for Rounton Coffee Roasters and some small collagraph prints made using Tetrapacks and mount board, for an exhibition with Cumbria Printmakers at Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin.
My own cyanotype work often includes hand embroidery and features layers of natural objects with my own drawings. Alongside this I sell greetings cards, cyanotype kits and printed gifts (I use heat press and sublimation dyes for this). It will be a long time, if ever, before I see any income from the book, I want to be very open about this, especially as this is written for students and alumni of an art school. There are no huge advances ( I was paid £800 and will get about 6% royalties on books sold, eventually) and no expenses, so dedicating 2 years to this kind of project is a gamble and depends on income from elsewhere, I just hope it helps raise my profile enough to start selling a few more pictures…
I’ll be at Harlow Carr, Harrogate, this summer for the Northern Soul pop up art exhibition in June and hopefully Factory Festival of Creative Arts, Keswick in August but I mostly sell online.
You studied textiles, how did you find your time on the course and studying at our school?
I loved my time at CCAD as it was then. I started off part time, inspired by a friend who was in her final year, and then went full time in second year (when I got impatient to graduate before reaching retirement age!). My year group were mostly loads younger than me, straight out of Foundation Year, but a few, especially in the part time group, were older and we all got on really well.
I really enjoyed the mix of ages and experiences. Not many of my year went on to creative careers despite all their talent and hard work, but my friend Lyndsay McBean has made a success out of her company Nutmeg & Arlo. I do wish I could go back and do it all again now as I think the course and the facilities have improved a lot since 2008 with more up to date use of technology along side the traditional processes.
I think the most useful thing I came away with was my blog, started in the last few weeks of my degree as part of Professional Studies, we had to quickly think of a name in the lesson and for various reasons ( to do with where I lived and a late night after-party scene at the time) I chose Witchmountain which has stuck! The blog turned into a 16 year long, rambling diary which is often neglected for months at a time, but which has given me a record of life events and progress made when I often felt I was making none. I also made real life connections that have lead to creative opportunities and sometimes just moral support. So you see, I always liked writing as well as making images.
See more of Kim’s on her website here: witchmountain.co.uk
If you are interested in studying textiles make sure you find out more about our degree programme here. You can also visit our campus by booking on an open day our next one is June 1st. Future students that attend this event will be able to speak to students, staff and visit our studios! Find information for mature students here.
