Cut paper silhouettes: 2009
May 24th, 2009I remember sitting to have my profile sketched when I was little so that we could have silhouettes made of my brother and I. It was tedious for me – I can’t imagine actually making them that way.
a.) because I can’t draw.
b.) that’s pretty much it.
Enter technology. You can still do the cutting (which you don’t even really need to do, I guess – you could just use the printed silhouettes), but digital cameras and photo-editing software and printers do all the drawing. Yay! These were very satisfying to make. I love my little family, and desperately needed to spice up the wall over our diningroom table. Pretty things to look at = ability to tolerate this microscopic apartment for another handful of months.
Take headshot profile photo (silhouetted against a bright window is good), make black & white, up contrast as far as it will go, neaten up with a drawing tool if you wish, and print the mirror of the finished image that you want to see (i.e. – I wanted us all to be looking left, so I printed us looking right). Mount on black paper – I glued all over and taped the edges down. Or you could skip the whole cutting process and just frame the printed version, but then you don’t get to use an xacto knife.
Use cutting mat & precision cutting tool to cut out the image. The glue I used let me easily peel the printed version off of the back (junk gluestick), but you don’t have to. It shouldn’t show.
Pick a background paper. My frames are 10 x 13 and I wanted to use this 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper, so I had to trim and match up my edges. If you put your shorter “extra” piece towards the top of the frame and fix them together so that it’s tucked down behind the “outer” layer, the seam won’t show when it’s hung – even with this really thick, double-sided paper. I love these (expensive, wasteful, gifted, delightful) glue runners for exact matching that is acid-free & won’t rumple the paper.
Mount silhouettes on paper and frame. Ta-da! I am so happy with these :) But I really do need to get a polarizing filter so the photos aren’t all glare-y…
Frames: on sale for $5.00 each at Michael’s
Pretty paper: $1.69 per sheet at Michael’s
Black paper: $1.19 per sheet at Michael’s (I got 12 x 12, turned out I could have gotten away with 8 1/2 x 11)
Listening: Billy Bragg & Wilco
Reading: Columbine
Working on: crochet lessons from a friend this evening! hopefully there are some amigurumi animals (etc.) in Hazel’s future.
May 30th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Hello,
I came over from google as I’m going to attempt to make my own family silhouettes – very excited to get started next week.. wish me luck :)
Barbi
June 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Yay! They’re so fun – I hope you are happy with the results :)
June 12th, 2009 at 12:59 am
this is a cool way to make silhouettes. I have very vague memories of making these in first grade. I thought we did them with a projector and traced the shadow or something like that. either way, this high-tech way looks much simpler. thanks!
July 7th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
This is great idea I love it!!! :-)
Can i do it without photoshop on the computer?
I can’t draw at all and I dont have photoshop
but i would still like to do it on the computer then cut it
is it possible with out it?
:-)
July 8th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Yep, you can upload it to flickr.com and use the editing software there :)
July 8th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
(or you can download something free, like Gimp)
July 15th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I finally had the time to make one
Gimp worked great
thank you soo much! :-)
I wanted to make one of my famly like you did so I did a pratice one of my dog
He’s part of the family to. haha
Thanks again :-)