SUN PRINTING
The weather was warm and very sunny and this session, led by artist Jane Spray, dealt with producing prints on photo reactive paper. Objects are placed on this specialised paper for a short period and then put in water to develop. Rachel Shilston stood in for Hannah who was on holiday and again we had a lot of help from Sue Manser who has volunteered her time for all the sessions so far.
After the customary coffee and biscuits, the group went out to the site to collect natural objects such as ferns, bracken, seed and flower heads to make their prints. Back at Bracelands we used these objects to develop some really attractive prints, someone even used a woven basket. We found out that to get really good prints the paper had to be developed in the relative darkness of the farmhouse. The group produced some really attractive work.
We also looked at making peephole cameras and camera obscurers, which took quite a time. Charles took great care with his camera obscura but we ran out of time and Alison's excellent lunch and cake was calling us. We finished up the session with a few cameras but a mental note needs to be taken that we need to refresh with a longer session to do the camera work justice.
An enjoyable session with loads of talking, laughing and reminiscing. One of the group was a botanist and revisiting plants in the wood gave us all a new focus on the flora found there.
You can see some of the pieces that were produced using the sun printing technique. They are simple and effective and take only minutes to do once you get the procedure right.
After the session Nikki took one of the woven flowers that were finished in our willow weaving session and used at Monmouthshire Show. She placed it down at the log circle with all the landscape memories that people had written about and tied to the flower to start our Field of Memories. 
