Tutorial: How to Make Silhouette Portrait Art

I recently shared the Silhouette Portrait Art that I created as a guest post on Answers.com. I gave a description of how it was made and explained how I made over the thrift store frame, but today I am going to walk you through the actual silhouette-making process step by step. It’s very easy! Here is a tutorial for how to make silhouette portrait art the easy way.

What you’ll need:

Picture Frame
Black Cardstock
Computer and Printer
Printer Paper
Camera
Scissors

First, take a picture of your subject (in this case it was my son) turned to the side, so you get a good profile shot. It helps to have them stand in front of a light background.

Upload the photo to your computer, then use a photo editing program like Picasa or PicMonkey (both free!) to crop your photo from the chest up, and change it to high contrast black and white.

The black and white should suffice, but if you want it to be even more highly contrasted you can use the “Holga-ish” option in Picasa to invert the colors and really make your image stand out.

Print your image onto regular printer paper. I printed mine in a 5×7 size, but of course this will depend on the size of your frame and how big you want your image to be.

Cut out your profile.

Trace it onto your black cardstock, cut it out and insert it into your frame. You may need some double-sided tape to ensure that it stays put if you center it inside your frame. Light colored paper or fabric make the best background for the silhouette. I used burlap for mine.

That’s it!

I love the idea of incorporating these into a gallery wall, although mine is currently situated in a little fall arrangement in the living room/office.