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Make leaf prints with sunlight

This activity will take 60 minutes, is for ages 7+ with supervision needed.

Sun prints are one of the earliest types of photography.

Have you ever used sunlight to make a picture? By placing leaves on a special type of paper and putting them in the sun, you can create beautiful sun prints. 

What you'll need

  • Leaves
  • Thick plain paper (water colour paper works well) or cyanotype paper
  • Turmeric
  • Bicarbonate of soda
  • Surgical spirit
  • Water
  • Measuring jug
  • Teaspoon
  • 2 glass cups
  • Glass dish
  • Kitchen roll
  • Newspaper

How to make anthotype paper

  • Start by covering your work surface

    Step 1 of 9

    A person sits at a deck covered in plastic, there are items to do a science activity on the desk

    Turmeric can stain your work surface and clothes yellow! It's a good idea to cover the area with newspaper or kitchen roll and wear an apron or old clothes.

  • Go outside and gather some leaves

    Step 2 of 9

    A hand picking up some leaves

    Explore your local park, garden or doorstep and look for leaves and flowers of different shapes and sizes to arrange. The time of year will influence what you will be able to find. You could compare what you find in summer to what you find in autumn. 

  • Mix turmeric with surgical spirit

    Step 3 of 9

    Someone mixing surgical spirit with turmeric in a glass - they are using a spoon to measure in the spirit

    Put 3 teaspoons of turmeric and 12 teaspoons of surgical spirit into a glass, give it a good mix and then leave it to settle for a minute.

  • Filter your mixture

    Step 4 of 9

    Someone pours turmeric through kitchen paper

    Put a piece of kitchen roll into the mouth of another glass so that it can act as a filter. Pour your turmeric mixture onto the filter and wait a few minutes for all of the liquid to drip through to the glass. Then, carefully remove the filter that's holding the turmeric powder and put it in the bin.

  • Dunk your paper

    Step 5 of 9

    A hand dunks a piece of paper in turmeric, while an already-dunked piece of paper sits to one side

    Pour your turmeric liquid into a glass dish and then drop a piece of thick paper into it. You can cut your paper up into whatever size and shape you like. The paper will soak up the liquid and change from white to a sunny-yellow colour. Repeat this step to coat as many pieces of paper as you can.

  • Tape your leaves and flowers to your dried paper

    Step 6 of 9

    A hand tapes a flower to a piece of paper

    Be as artistic as you like when you arrange your leaves and flowers on your paper. 

  • Place your prints in sunlight

    Step 7 of 9

    Someone taping leave and flower prints to a window.

    You can tape your prints to a window, or leave them outside if it isn't going to rain. 

    Your prints are ready when the paper changes colour. 

    You can experiment with how long you leave your prints – on a cloudy day we left our prints on the window for four days! On a really sunny day it will take much less time than that to change colour. 

  • Dunk in bicarb and water

    Step 8 of 9

    someone dunks a piece of paper in bicarb and water in a dish

    Your print will keep changing colour in the sun, to stop this, dunk them in a solution of 60mL of warm water and 2 tablespoons of bicarb, dry, and this will stop the colour from changing furthur.  

    You can also place your prints inside a book where they cannot be touched by any sunlight. 

    If you used cyanotype paper, just rinse them with water to fix the colour. 

  • Admire your prints

    Step 9 of 9

    A yellow print of a leaf on paper

    The are sun-sational!

How does it work?

Where the light hits, the paper changes colour. The paper hidden under the leaf doesn't change colour so when you remove your leaf, its shape stays on the paper.

Here, you have made your own 'anthotype' paper using turmeric. You can also buy 'cyanotype' paper (a special kind of light-sensitive paper) to make sun prints. 

The fun part is experimenting with different leaves and amounts of sunlight to see what prints you can create.

In the 1800s, a scientist called Anna Atkins used cyanotype paper to make hundreds of beautiful images of plants.

Think scientifically

When scientists run their experiments they do lots of tests, changing one thing in each test to see what effect the change will have on the thing they're measuring. Making sun prints is just like doing science. 

You change something – like the amount of time you leave your prints out in the sun – and then observe what difference it makes to your sun print. You note down your results, learn from them and then think about how you can change your sun print next time.

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