Lost in Translations (or Silhouettes to the rest of the world.)

Ok, so to most people, these are silhouettes, but in design school we worked on something very similar that our profession called "graphic translations" not silhouettes. It turned out to be one of my favorite projects that year and I went on to work with them on my own.

For most of last year I was obsessed with silhouettes, we had them cut of the kids in the spring and they have been a favorite of mine. I just love them.

These are the real deal - hand cut, from live models, not from a photo, not painted, not on the computer. Such a talent!!!

I've taken advantage of these by turning them into Christmas Ornaments this year. The obsession hasn't gone away. In fact it has gotten worse. I'm a woman obsessed.

And I do believe I've found a way to channel that obsession. By feeding it.

My girlfriend Kim has an amazing lovely, amazingly talented daughter. (Well actually, she has 3 of them, so much talent in one family - She and her husband know how to nurture these girls so their abilities shine.) Their oldest girl is who inspired me with this project, she is a dancer.

I took this photo that Kim had of her:

(The girl takes my breath away...)

And I imported that picture into illustrator where I outlined it.

With this I wanted to remain true to the art of hand cut Silhouettes by not piecing it together, I kept a continuous line so that when cut, it would be 1 piece. That involved a bit of trouble shooting but I got it work.

I then took the outlines into a 12x12 illustrator document and sized them to a variety of sizes.

I exported this file as an SVG that I opened in SCAL and cut on my Cricut on black paper. Finally I mounted them on white paper... and forgive my AWFUL picture, I should be ashamed of showing such an amazing project with such an awful picture but I'm impatient like that. I promise better photos soon.

So now I've got a file that I can use cut silhouettes of this amazing dancer at pretty much any size, on any material.

This project has brought me such joy, it is the blend of so many of my passions, design (using illustrator), crafting (using the circut & finishing the pieces), kids and celebrating them...

I'm really hoping this is going to open the door for something new, custom silhouettes.

Linking up to "Make Your Monday" at Twice Remembered and Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors.