Sun prints: creating art using the power of the sun

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Sun prints are one of the easiest art projects you can do with kids. All you need are a few basic materials and a sunny day (preferably with little to no wind). Sun prints are a great project you can use as a stand alone art project or as a science lesson about the power of the sun.

Note: For more art activities, see my Arts and Crafts for Kids page. For more science activities, see my Science Activities for Kids page.

To make sun prints, the only “special” material you need is the right kind of paper. You can purchase sun paper specifically designed for creating sun art.

But I have found that construction paper also works really well, because the color fades quickly in the sun. On the other hand, the colored card stock we own did NOT work well because it was pretty fade resistant.

To make sun prints, we laid our paper onto trays. We then used pieces from our Spielgaben set to create pictures on our papers.

We created pictures of flowers growing in the sun.

And we created city maps with buildings and roads and bridges.

Then we set out trays out in the sun for several hours.

After a couple of hours, we removed the objects from our papers to see our art projects. The sun did a fabulous job of fading our papers, leaving dark imprints where we had covered the papers with objects.

You can make sun prints with just about any objects you have on hand:

leaves, rocks, and sticks for some nature sun prints
letter pieces from an alphabet puzzle for some letter sun prints
pattern blocks for some shape sun prints
and the list is really endless. . .

I recommend using heavy objects that won’t blow away. If you use items that may blow away, you will want to lay some plexiglass or another clear layer over your paper to keep the objects on top from moving.