Meet Charles Burns over Zoom and pose for him while he cuts your portrait.
Silhouette Cutting: a rapid process
Charles works really fast. His silhouette portraits are cut freehand from black paper, using a pair of surgical scissors. Each silhouette takes just two or three minutes – depending on how complicated your hairstyle is!
Your ten-minute sitting
Our virtual studio days are divided into ten-minute sittings.
Ten minutes doesn’t sound very long, but it’s more than enough to cut silhouettes of both of you. Charles can cut you as a pair of classic cameo portraits, mounted on separate oval mounts, or as one double silhouette.
Two consecutive sessions will make silhouettes for a family of four, three sittings for a family of six, and so on.
The process is both fun and educational. Most people cannot believe silhouettes are really made this way! The interesting thing is, you don’t really need to sit that still…
Wriggly kids and disobedient dogs
After more than twenty years spent cutting silhouettes at events up and down the country, as The Roving Artist, Charles is used to cutting portraits of moving targets. In fact, he prefers it; the unpredictable nature of a live sitting often adds life to the finished portrait.
Working with animals and small children is no problem.
Browse our upcoming virtual studio days
So pick a date, the coupon you need is: SCISSORS
You’ll notice our studio days take place at different times of day. This is to allow for time differences.
- Morning events are suitable for those in the Middle and Far East, as well as Australia
- Daytime events are suitable for those based in Europe or the UK
- Afternoon events are suitable for those in the UK and the East Coast of America
- Evening events are suitable for those based in any US time zone
All studio days run on London time
A Family Heirloom
At the end of the day Charles will mount the silhouettes onto signed cards, backed with a stamped certificate of authenticity, and post them to you anywhere in the world.
He makes silhouettes exactly the same way that silhouettists have been working for over 200 years.
The silhouettes haven’t changed much, but the way you’ll pose certainly has!
Just paper and scissors
If you like, Charles will save the off cuts for you.
These off cuts don’t always survive the cutting process, so this can’t be guaranteed, but if you’d like them please do ask.
