Fun with Sun Prints

One of Trevor's Cub Scout electives this year was to make nature-inspired sun prints. Fun! We took the supplies into the backyard and started selecting promising leaves, flowers, and other elements for the prints. I showed Trevor how to do his composition in the shade and then move it to the sun for exposure. For his first design, he used two leaves and a flower.

Trevor made a few more nature-inspired prints, then he headed indoors to look for other interesting things to try. Here is a Lego spike strip and two Minecraft characters.

Here are three of his favorite minifigs, separated into all their parts. These dimensional items added interesting shadows to the sun prints that the flattened leaves and flowers did not.

Of course, it is impossible for me to be around any type of crafting without joining in, so I made a few prints of my own. My favorite was a grouping of seven small flowers. When the print was dry, I added a rub-on, drew stems with a white pen, and attached it to a card base.

To make your own sun prints, you need a special paper (cyanotype). It's easy to find in craft stores or science museum gift shops packaged as a sunprint kit. It's around $10 for 15-20 papers. Here's an affiliate link to one (of many) brands sold through Amazon: Super Sunprint Kit.