SunPrint
Education Lab
Understanding the Learners
High school students often face academic pressure and structured expectations. In art classes, this can lead them to focus on technique and polished results while overlooking ordinary details that they are "used to".
Why Sunprints
Sunprint creates space to experiment without worrying about technical perfection. Using ordinary plants and found materials, students can take creative risks and rediscover beauty in things they usually overlook.
Learning to Notice and Experiment
This workshop invites students to slow down and reexamine the natural world around them. By finding creative possibilities in ordinary plants and objects they often overlook, they will learn to notice beauty in their everyday surroundings. Through experimentation, students become more comfortable with uncertainty, make choices without knowing exactly how they will turn out, and learn to value unexpected results as part of the creative process.
Curriculum Adaptations
Introduce the science behind cyanotype
Add some explanations to backgrounds knowlege, helps them connect with their academic subjects like science or history to art. For example, how why sunprint paper can react to UV light, or the historical applications of sunprint.
Use ordinary materials from their surroundings
Except for pre-prepared leaves, ask students to collect common objects, such as classroom materials, to make a sunprint.
Turn the Workshop into Exhibition
Educators can include students' work in an on-campus exhibition, accompanied by brief explanations of the science, materials, or observations behind it. This turns the activity into both an art display and a small public-learning experience.
Our experiences
“I used the crystal pendant from my necklace for one of my prints. I didn’t expect the light to pass through it that way, and the result looked completely different from what I imagined.”
—— Student from CLHS
“This workshop introduced a kind of experimentation we do not always have time for in regular art classes. It was a fun experience to do this together with students”
—— Art teacher from CLHS
