Sun Prints for Summer Solstice

There’s something that happens every June where I get a little obsessed with the idea of marking it. The longest day. The peak of the light. I want to do something with my hands that feels equal to the moment, something that isn’t just a note in my journal or a nice dinner. This year I landed on cyanotype sun prints, and honestly? It delivered.

What Even Is a Cyanotype?

Cyanotype is one of the oldest photographic printing processes – invented in the 1840s – and it works exactly the way it sounds: you lay objects on light-sensitive paper, expose it to UV light (in our case, the sun), then rinse with water, and whatever was blocking the light shows up white against a deep, dreamy blue.

I used the Toysmith Outdoor Discovery Solar Print Kit Bundle, which is technically marketed for kids, but I don’t think that should stop anyone. It comes with 24 sheets of sun paper, stencils, and small frames, and it is genuinely simple to use.

Why the Solstice?

The solstice felt like the most honest possible reason to make art with sunlight. You’re literally using the thing you’re celebrating. The paper captures the light of the longest day – stores it, in a way. There’s something about that I find really moving.

I also liked the idea of having a ritual that was hands-on and a little unpredictable. Cyanotype has this quality where you set things up and then you kind of surrender to the process. The sun does what it does. You don’t fully control the outcome. For a day that’s about abundance and peak energy, I liked making something that required me to actually slow down and wait.

The Process (What I Did)

For objects, I ended up pulling from two sources. I had a collection of pressed flowers I’d ordered from Amazon for a completely different project – I’ve been modge podging them onto clear bookmarks – and I figured I’d try a few on the sun paper. Turns out pressed flowers are basically perfect for this. They’re already completely flat, the detail is incredible, and the silhouettes are exactly the kind of graphic, delicate shapes that cyanotype loves.

I also went out to the yard and grabbed a few things that looked like they’d press down easily – some flowers that were cooperative enough to lay flat under the acrylic panel. Those worked well too, though they took a bit more fussing to get positioned.

(This whole experiment has also inspired me to start building my own pressed flower collection. More on that another time, probably.)

I worked in the shade to set up each sheet, arranging my objects and pressing them flat with the acrylic panel that came with the kit.

Then I carried everything out into full sun and started timing. The paper starts out a pale blue-green and gradually darkens as it exposes – you’re looking for it to shift to a grayish-lavender, which means it’s ready. Depending on how intense your light is, this takes somewhere between five and fifteen minutes. On the solstice, in the PNW? It was on the faster end.

Then into the water. That’s the satisfying part – you watch the image develop as you rinse it, the white silhouettes appearing as the unexposed coating washes away, the background deepening into that signature Prussian blue. I let everything dry flat.

I ended up with more prints than I expected to like, but three were clear keepers. Those three are now framed and hanging on the wall.

What Worked

Pressed flowers. Honestly the star of the show. Two of my three framed prints used pressed flowers, and the results were stunning – all that fine petal detail, the delicate stems, the way they lay perfectly flat without any coaxing. If you have pressed flowers on hand (or want an excuse to start pressing them), use them.

Working quickly in the shade. You have more time than you think, but setup in direct sun will start exposing your paper before you’re ready. I set everything up in a shady spot and then moved it out.

Layering. One of my favorite prints had two or three overlapping botanical layers, and the translucency created by partial overlap gave it this lovely depth.

The acrylic panel. Using it to press everything flat made a huge difference in edge crispness. Don’t skip it.

and yes, I do happen to keep my holiday cards I get from friends up throughout the year

What Didn’t Work

Bulky 3D objects. I tried a small pine cone and it was a mess – the edges were blurry because the paper couldn’t make contact. Stick to flat things, or objects you can press very flat.

Rushing the rinse. One print I pulled too soon and the image was muddy. Give it a full minute of rinsing, swishing the paper gently in the water, until it runs clear.

Not protecting the paper. I had one sheet start to expose while I was still getting organized because I’d set it down in a patch of indirect light. Keep everything in the dark sleeve until you’re fully ready to go.

The Ones I Framed

Picking three out of everything I made was harder than I expected. Two of them were made with the pressed flowers – those were honestly almost guaranteed to be keepers, the detail was so good. The third was from a flower I’d cut from the yard, something that flattened easily enough to get a clean edge. I ended up choosing based on which ones had the clearest silhouettes and the deepest color – the blue is really the thing, and some prints came out more saturated than others depending on exposure time.

I put them in simple black frames, and they look genuinely beautiful together. Something between art print and pressed botanical, with this ghost-image quality that feels old and a little wild. Very much the aesthetic I was going for.

If you’ve been looking for a solstice craft that isn’t just candle-making (nothing wrong with candle-making), I’d really recommend this. It’s inexpensive, it takes an afternoon, and you end up with something that actually captures a moment in time. In the most literal way possible.

The kit I used is linked above – I think it’s great for beginners. For the botanicals, I’d honestly just start in your yard or on a walk. A week or two in a flower press (or between the pages of a heavy book) and you’ll have everything you need. That’s actually where I’m headed next – building up my own pressed collection so I’m not relying on ordering them. If you want to go deeper into cyanotype as a practice, there’s a whole world of it: coating your own paper, printing on fabric, doing photographic negatives. But for a first time? Sun, paper, something flat and beautiful. That’s enough.