Before cameras became common, photographers and scientists used light, water and chemistry to capture the world around them. My cyanotype workshop in Porto introduces you to one of the most beautiful of those processes: a 19th century printing technique that uses sunlight to transform plants, objects and photographic negatives into deep Prussian blue images on paper. The results are always surprising, always unique, and made entirely by your own hand.
The session takes place at Túnel, a creative hub in Porto where more than 15 artists work and create every day. You will coat paper with a light-sensitive solution, arrange your chosen objects, plants or negatives into a composition, and let the sunlight do the rest. As the prints are washed in water, the image appears almost as if from nowhere, a rich blue that feels closer to magic than chemistry. The process is simple, unhurried and genuinely absorbing from start to finish.
What you’ll learn
🔵 The history and science behind the cyanotype process
🔵 How to coat paper with a light-sensitive solution
🔵 How to compose and arrange objects, plants and negatives for printing
🔵 How sunlight exposure and water washing reveal the final image
🔵 How to experiment with contrast, texture and composition on paper
What’s included
🌿 All materials, chemicals and equipment
🌿 Plants, objects and materials to create your compositions
🌿 Full guidance from Ivan da Silva throughout the session
🌿 Your finished cyanotype prints to take home
What you leave with
A set of original blue prints made by you using sunlight, unique artworks that cannot be replicated because no two cyanotype sessions ever produce the same result.
I am Ivan da Silva, a photographer and artist working primarily with analogue and chemical processes. What draws me to techniques like cyanotype is the same thing that keeps me working with analogue systems: the failures are part of the work. Unlike digital processes where systems are largely closed, chemical and analogue processes leave traces of themselves in the image, and those traces are where the most interesting things happen.
No prior experience with photography or printmaking needed. If you are curious about light, process and the pleasure of making something you could not have predicted, this workshop is for you.
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