Sun Prints

I recently had a great trip to our local Goodwill store. It must be due to the summer months because that store was packed and I came home with this super large empty frame, a drawing easel and the little crate (on wheels) seen below the frame. After reading a link my sister had sent me on sun prints, I checked out Dharma Trading and discovered they sell sun paints! These paints, which react to the heat of the sun, are called Setacolor by pebeo (purchased from Dharma Trading. We used the transparent, smallest size, which sells for $3.60 each in Sky Blue and Lemon Yellow.) The whole activity was fun and we made some colorful artwork for our walls in the process.

To use the paints, I mixed 1/4 cup of water with 1/8 cup of paint for each color. I taped a large garbage bag over the picnic table so the paint wouldn't bleed through. Before painting we collected flowers, stems, leaves, and branches to use in the process. Next, we sprayed the 100% cotton cloth (which I prewashed and ironed) with water until it was wet.

The cloth was painted with the two colors and sometimes mixed to make green. After we finished painting the fabric, we placed the plants on top, making sure to gently press down the leaves. It took about half an hour in the sun until it was dry and ready to remove the plants.

While we waited for the large artwork to dry my daughters worked on smaller pieces of cloth. We added a dropper to use (because they love droppers) and the colors mixed even more.

They loved running around the yard gathering plants and bringing them back for the artwork.

The colors spread easily with the foam brushes and we only ended up using about half the paint.

The large cloth was attached to the frame with a staple gun and hung on the playroom wall. The plants with leaves make the biggest impact since they can attach well to the wet cloth. Sticks and branches didn't work as well. We placed a small sunflower at the top and it looks just like the sun.

Other pieces of fabric were put into embroidery hoops to hang. The colors are so cheerful and bright.

Leftover fabric was cut into squares and added to our fabric scraps for play.