Sunshine is your Craft Supply

Sep 8

Written By Amber

Fun things to do in the sun:

Read while stretched out on a sunny drenched beach
Swim in the lake
and make sun prints!

Sun prints are a great way to use summer's greatest resource (an abundance of sunlight) to your artistic advantage. You are basically crafting with sunlight!

If you want to make sun prints, here is how you do it:

What you need:

A tray with water and a dash of lemon juice (for more enriched color)
Sun print kit which includes the paper and the clear acrylic sheet you use to put over your objects during the exposure time.
Leaves, weeds, feathers, shells, rocks and other natural objects of interest
Sunshine!

Step One: Collect your specimen's. With sun prints, part of the fun is wandering around and seeking out your specimens/ artistic muses. It forces you to look at the plant life and nature around you in a different way. A sunflower is beautiful in person, but it is a quite dense flower and would not look as beautiful on a sun print. Something with a translucent petal would be extra beautiful or a flower with an interesting silhouette. A rock might be really extraordinary in person, but as a silhouette on a sun print it may look more like a sad blob. All of these things are important when deciding what to use for a sun print.

Step Two: Find a shady place to quickly pull out a single sheet of sun print paper and arrange objects on the paper in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Depending on the object, put the plastic sheet over the objects (for instance, if you were using a shell for a sun print, you wouldn't need a plastic sheet, but with things like flowers, the end product looks all the more beautiful when the flowers are smooshed against the paper by the plastic sheet. Bring the arrangement into direct sunlight.