Tuesday, April 6, 2010

LoLo Tute: A Silhouette Project

In Joy School right now, the girls are learning about the Joy of Being Unique. As an on-going project, one of the moms helped the girls start little books, All About Me. I'm not sure what all they have in there so far, but she mentioned to me that silhouettes were needed, approximately 5x7. I was on the case!

I started by taking head shots of all the girls. I underexposed the pictures, and posed them by windows, to get as much contrast as possible. They were in the playroom, on the hardwood floor, so I lined their feet up on the boards to try and get a perfectly placed "side view." (Ming Wai's was still a little off...but I think her head's on crooked. All the other girls' pictures turned out fine. Heh.)

The next morning, I loaded the pictures onto my computer and cut several pieces of computer paper into 5x7" rectangles.

To make the silhouettes, carefully tape a piece of paper over the screen (fixing the tape to the computer, and not the actual screen) and then use your mouse to shrink your picture viewing window until the head fits comfortably inside your paper. Carefully, trace around the head with a pencil. (Lightly now, you don't want to damage your screen!)

Remove the paper from your computer screen, and carefully cut out your head with a pair of sharp scissors, or a craft knife.

Give your Little a piece of paper (in their favorite color, please), trimmed to size (5x7" here) and tell them to go to town. I intended for the girls to scribble and mark up the page in a riot of happy colors. Most of the girls obliged me, but one drew a beautiful little picture of a snowman. Overachiever. *grin*

I used double-sided tape to attach the silhouettes over the girls' artwork. (Except for Miss Overachiever - her silhouette was mounted on the back of her artwork. I didn't have the heart to cover it up!)

And there you go! Easy peasy silhouettes, perfect for small All About Me books. 

4 comments:

Su said...

Such a cute idea. Were the girls able to pick out their own silhouette?

Buckeroomama said...

Great job! I'll try it with the kids. :)

I had my silhouette done by one of those cut-out artists (or whatever you call them) when I was in China (Beijing, I think).

Alison said...

I have a silhouette of my oldest child when she was in 1st grade. It is one of my favorite pieces of art hanging

Myrnie said...

Very cool :)