Amanda waite’s Blueprint princess elizabeth cyanotype portrait

Amanda Waite, local artist, worked in collaboration with Claire Austin and Maureen La Frenais, to create a large-scale Cyanotype Mosaic Portrait of the Queen with 17 GCSE art students from Cornerstone Academy, St. Edward’s School and Lytchett Minster School.

The inspiration for the cyanotype mosaic was based upon the first official photograph when the Queen was in her youth as Princess Elizabeth, aged 16, taken by Sir Cecil Beaton. As a team, we reviewed photos of the Queen over her life span and felt that this image was a profound moment in history with her destiny, and it linked because the GCSE students we worked with were of a similar age to Princess Elizabeth and they too were on the cusp of making decisions about their future.

Each student had a unique creative blueprint which formed their identify and interestingly, the term ‘blueprint’ originates from the cyanotype process. During the two day workshop with the GCSE students, we explored right-brain mark-making using texture, form and value inspired by natural objects found along the coastline of Poole. The students created abstract artworks by layering their experimental marks. Once they were in the creative flow, they drew portraits of one another solely using the right-side of the brain. Their work was reproduced onto film to expose cyanotype images onto watercolour paper using natural UV light. The final installation was made up of 9 panels which were each 51cm x 61cm. A software app was used that married up one main image (Princess Elizabeth) with the multiple images of the students’ artwork to create the mosaic effect.

Meet the Artist - Amanda Waite

I am a contemporary Scottish painter based in Dorset. My work ranges from portraits, figurative surrealism, abstracts and contemporary seascapes. My career began in advertising as in in-house illustrator in the early 90s, after graduating with a BA Hons in illustration at De Montfort University Leicester. For the past decade, I’ve been working as an art tutor and since lockdown, I have been focusing on developing my own creative voice as a painter. Artists including Lita Cabellut and Christian Hook have inspired my approach to figurative painting. Recent works include ‘Living Cairn’, created for the first Power House COIN exhibition in 2021 and it was also exhibited in Eindhoven this year with a 7th placing in the Painting of the Year 2021 competition, which received over one thousand submissions. “Swan verses Goliath”, a self-portrait was accepted into the long list for the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2021.

The coastline, study of the human form, life drawing, identity, my Christian faith and childhood memories all play a part in my creative process. My portraits are painted in oils and sometimes combined with a cyanotype print. A cyanotype is an alternative photographic process where light-sensitive chemicals can be applied to a natural-based surface. Playful experimentation with this type of printmaking allows me to use surreal techniques like juxtaposition and symbolism to enrich the sitter’s story within a portrait or figurative painting.