How to Make Victorian Silhouettes
Gifts Ideas for Using Shadow Profiles
The classic Victorian shade makes a great gift for grandparents and a fun element in paper collages.
Don’t pay to have someone create silhouettes for you. Make your own silhouette following these simple instructions. The instructions below are for a classic Victorian Silhouette.
Supplies
- digital or film camera
- small sharp scissors
- black paper
- adhesive of choice
- background paper
- frame
Instructions
Take a photo of subject in profile. Make a pattern:
Pattern Instructions for Film Camera
- Have the processed image enlarged to the desired size on a photocopier (it doesn’t matter if the enlargement is in black and white).
- Use scissors to carefully trim around profile. You will need to make some editorial decisions at this time. If there is flyaway hair feel free to trim it out. If the contour of the silhouette is off (sometimes it is and you can still make a true representation if you edit) adjust as you trim. It may take several efforts to create a good pattern.
Pattern Instructions for Digital Camera
- Load the image into your favorite photo-editing software. Use a selection tool to select the edges of your subject's profile.
- Use scissors to carefully trim around profile. You will need to make some editorial decisions at this time. If there is flyaway hair feel free to trim it out.
- Invert your selection and delete the background of the image. Use a solid color fill to flood the profile.
- Size your pattern and print.
- Use scissors to carefully cut out profile
- Trace pattern onto black paper.
- Carefully cut out the image.
- Trim background paper to fit frame.
- Affix silhouette to background paper.
- Insert image in frame and assemble frame.
- Enjoy a beautiful classic image and preserve a memory of someone you love!
Ideas and Suggestions
An elegant, simple hair arrangement is best for this type of profile.
Find fun ways to use silhouettes.
- Incorporate them in collages.
- Cut them in felt and sew them on clothes or pillows
- Decorate them with beads or buttons.
- Make a silhouette of your child every year and keep it in an album.
A Little about Silhouettes
Silhouettes received their name thanks to Louis XV of France’s thrifty minister of finance, Etienne de Silhouette (July 8, 1709 - 1767). De Silhouette was so cheap that his name became synonymous with anything done cheaply. There is a legend that de Silhouette actually spent his spare time cutting silhouettes of people he knew. Silhouettes were much cheaper than paintings or their descendent portrait art form, the photograph.
Victorian silhouettes were the poor man’s photograph. During the Victorian era, photography became the popular method of creating a likeness. It was easier and quicker to do a sitting for a photograph than it was to have a painting made. In addition, the Victorians love of new technologies and their fascination with novelty made photographs the most desired portrait medium. However, for the poor the silhouette was a much cheaper way to create the likeness of a loved one.
