Parents and children made beautiful new art pieces – using an old technique – at a fun event called “Sunprints & Shadows,” held at Playground 278, by Fillmore Avenue and Madison Place, in Marine Park, on Sunday, July 21st.
Sunprints & Shadows is just one of many family-oriented events sponsored by the Marine Park Alliance (MPA) Summer Children’s Series, known as “Just for Kids.” It was curated by Beryl Perron-Feller, a craftsperson and educator who educated families on the process of cyanotype and its history and showed how to create eco-friendly art pieces by using pieces of nature around us.
Perron-Feller said that cyanotype was initially used before electronics; it uses ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun to change the color pigments on a special paper. When UV light hits the paper, it causes a change in the iron molecules, which makes them insoluble. When the paper is washed, the water-soluble iron molecules are washed away, and that part of the paper remains white. The exposed parts containing the insoluble iron (ferric ferrocyanide) return to a new blue known as Prussian blue. These two separate reactions combine with the original material to form a new image.
“I love having kids come, and they don’t know what to expect and skeptical even, but this process is all about transformation,” said Perron-Feller. “So when they put their materials down, they expose it and then take the paper out from under the leaves. It looks so different and that’s when the magic happens and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing and beautiful.'”
Children were joyful in seeing their artwork come to life. “My daughter loves it,” said Amy Cheng. “It’s totally something new that I never heard of; it’s beautiful.”
The event brought families together while learning something new and creative.
“I thought it was very creative; it brought kids to nature and showed them what the sun could do,” said Maria Carro-D’Alessandro, founder of MPA. “We’re getting the people to come out, showing them what nature could do and know who we are.”
The next Just for Kids event – “Sea Spirits Puppet Show” – will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 27th, also at Playground 278. Families will learn about the mythologies of West Africa’s coast as told by puppeteer, children’s book author and illustrator Fatima Sambo Schoenfelder.
