Today we are doing colorful silhouette art for kids! We decided to continue on our camping and outdoors theme for this silhouette art. Kids of all ages will have an absolute blast creating this lovely silhouette craft. You get to play with paints, explore colors, shadows, and can make a very unique piece of art. Make this silhouette art at home or in the classroom.
Silhouette Art For Kids
Silhouette art has always intrigued me. I love the dark pictures on bright backgrounds. It just looks so neat. And I’ve been trying to find ways for my kids to explore colors, shadows, and practice fine motor skills so I came up with this fun silhouette art project.
It doesn’t use a lot of craft supplies, so it’s budget-friendly, which is always a plus. And you can even adjust it a bit and make it easier for younger kids especially when it comes to scissors time. So, without further ado, grab your art supplies and let’s start this silhouette craft!
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Related: Check out this spray bottle silhouette art project!
Supplies Needed For This Silhouette Art Project
How To Make This Awesome and Colorful Silhouette Project
Step 1
Paint the bottom of your paper yellow.
Craft Notes:
Work fast to avoid the colors drying too fast so you can have a blended level. If your paint dries while you add the second color use water to blend it out.
Step 2
Add your orange paint right above the yellow paint and blend the line where they meet.
Step 3
Now add the red paint above the orange section again, blending the line where the two colors meet.
Step 4
It’s time to add the pink paint above the red paint. Blend the line where the colors meet.
Step 5
Finally, add the purple paint. Don’t forget to blend the line where the pink and purple meet the best you can.
Step 6
Take your camping printable templates and cut out the pictures you want to use on your painted background. You can mix and match things if you want.
Step 7
Take your black paper and use the white paper cut outs to cut out images. These will be the black silhouette for your finished piece. If your kids are still new with scissors then draw lines around the white paper cut outs and let them cut along the white lines.
Step 8
Now, glue your shadow pieces against your painted background. This piece makes me think of sunsets in nature.
Now you’re finished!
How To Make This Silhouette Art For Kids Project Your Own
There are so many different ways to make this silhouette art project for kids your own.
- Use a colored piece of paper. We opted for a painted background, but you can use a colorful piece of paper so that your silhouette images pop.
- You can use any of our printables to trace around and cut out to make a super unique silhouette piece of art.
- Try it on a white background.
- You can do a painted silhouette if you wanted. Simple draw around the images on the painted background and paint them in black.
- Choose dark a dark background color and use white silhouettes instead.
Our Experience With This Silhouette Art For Kids
My kids had so much fun with this art project. It reminded them of when we make shadow puppets, and I suppose I can see the connection. But they also got to make a unique piece of art venerating nature too as we added moons, clouds, stars, hills, bushes, trees, and a tent. Oh and a fire. They insisted on a fire.
I think their favorite part though was the painting. I can’t blame them though, who doesn’t love painting? There are so many different ways to make silhouette art, I’m excited to try this again using different printables and seeing what we can come up with. I sincerely you and yours had as much fun as we did making this craft.
Materials
- Kids Activities Blog Camping Printables
- Scissors
- Glue Stick
- Black Construction Paper
- Acrylic or Water Color Paints (We used acrylic in: yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple)
- Painting Paper
- Optional: White Pencil
Instructions
- Paint the bottom of your paper yellow.
- Add your orange paint right above the yellow paint and blend the line where they meet.
- Now add the red paint above the orange section again, blending the line where the two colors meet.
- It’s time to add the pink paint above the red paint. Blend the line where the colors meet.
- Finally, add the purple paint. Don’t forget to blend the line where the pink and purple meet the best you can.
- Take your camping printable templates and cut out the pictures you want to use on your painted background. You can mix and match things if you want.
- Take your black paper and use the white paper cut outs to cut out images. These will be the black silhouette for your finished piece. If your kids are still new with scissors then draw lines around the white paper cut outs and let them cut along the white lines.
- Now, glue your shadow pieces against your painted background. This piece makes me think of sunsets in nature.
- Now you’re finished!
Notes
Work fast to avoid the colors drying too fast so you can have a blended level. If your paint dries while you add the second color use water to blend it out.
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How did your silhouette art turn out?
