How Do I Make a Hand-cut Silhouette?

- February 21, 2021

Silhouettes Made By Hand!

This is me cutting silhouettes at The Strawberry festival in South Berwick, ME a few years back!

Many times when I am cutting silhouettes, people ask how I learned to do this. I have been drawing faces all my life and have studied drawing and art for many years!

When I learned (around 10 or 11 years ago) that silhouette cutting is something that some artists still do I thought ,wow I can probably do that! So I went online and checked out how other silhouette artists go about cutting silhouettes by hand, and then I practiced. And practiced! But because I could already draw faces it came kind of easily to me.

I just look at a person's profile and cut a likeness out of black paper with just a pair of regular scissors that are very sharp! I then glue the silhouette onto a white piece of cardstock.
Most people like a 5 "x 7 " format for easy framing, but I do work bigger from time to time.

The silhouettes you see below were all cut by hand!