Alternative Photography - Experimental Cyanotypes

What you'll learn

Uncover how sunlight, plant matter, and eco-chemistry converge to create glowing, camera-less images. In this hands-on workshop, artist Simone Darcy guides you through the expressive world of Phytograms and Anthotypes, two of photography’s most poetic, environmentally conscious image-making processes.

Using leaves, flowers, fruit, and other natural materials, you’ll explore how direct contact, pressure, moisture, and sunlight interact with light-sensitive surfaces to generate richly textured, organic images. This workshop celebrates slowness, experimentation, and the magic that happens when nature collaborates with photographic chemistry.

You’ll also dive into cyanotype and toning techniques, expanding your creative toolkit through colour shifts, layering and texture. Working with hand-coated papers and sunlight, you’ll transform natural materials and everyday objects into vibrant Prussian Blue artworks while learning how toning solutions can shift these blues into browns, greens, greys or warm organic hues, giving each print its own atmospheric personality.

Simone will introduce the art-historical roots of these processes, along with contemporary artistic applications, ensuring you leave with both a technical foundation and an expressive body of work. Across the session, you’ll create a series of 4–6 unique pieces on high-quality 300gsm paper, experiencing the unforgettable moment when pale exposed sheets deepen into rich colour under running water.

Perfect for beginners or anyone craving a hands-on creative practice, this workshop blends eco-art, analogue photography and contemporary abstraction in an accessible, inspiring way.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this cyanotype course, you should be able to:

Hand-coat papers with cyanotype chemistry
Expose and develop prints using sunlight
Create expressive compositions using natural and found materials
Apply toning methods to alter colour and mood
Produce a cohesive set of 4–6 finished cyanotype artworks

Course content

History and contemporary relevance of cyanotype
Hand-coating and preparing papers
Outdoor exposure and development
Negative images, objects, and botanical forms
Toning solutions for colour variation
Experimental mark-making and layering

All materials are included

Open to all skill levels, no prior photography experience is needed.

Course tutors

Simone Darcy

About Simone Darcy Simone Darcy is an Australian artist and educator whose practice explores experimental and historical photographic processes. Her work often combines elements of performance,...

View Simone Darcy's profile

Classes Online Courses

Alternative Photography - Experimental Cyanotypes

Thu 25 Jun 2026

1 session, 2.5 hours total

10am - 12:30pm (UTC+10:00)

2A Gordon St, Rozelle

Simone Darcy

When	Time	Where	Session Notes
Thu 25 Jun 2026	10am - 12:30pm	A1-1: Visual Arts - 2A Gordon St, Rozelle

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