This post may contain affiliate links, which means I get a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. I only recommend items I love and have had a positive experience with. Thank you!
Silhouette art is easier to make than you might imagine. Learn how to make gorgeous silhouette art at home and save a bundle!
On my recent living room tour, several of you spied my horse silhouettes and asked me how to make your own silhouette art. This was a fun project and I’m happy to oblige!
I’ll walk you through my method for making silhouette art for a fraction of the cost of buying it. I’ve also got a few handy tips and tricks to make your art project easy.
Horse Silhouette Art Inspiration
First things first, I measured the wall sections where I wanted the horses to go. Then I sent the hubs out to the garage to plank some wood for me to the size I wanted.
Prepping the Wood
I wanted the wood to look like it was varying shades and different pieces of wood, so I taped up sections of all different widths.
Then I scrounged through my husband’s stain drawer and started wiping on stain. Once the strips of varying stains were dry, I ran some walnut stain over the whole thing.
Prepare Your Silhouette Stencil
Prepare Your Silhouette Stencil
Then, I soaked the back of my horse with spay adhesive. It is important to get every square inch really good. You don’t want the paint to sneak under your paper and cause distortion.
Painting the Silhouette Art
Once it was dry, I took a sander to the whole thing, scuffing to my pleasure.
It really turned out better than I had hoped.
How to Make Reverse Silhouette Art
So, while I went to do the second horse, I had always intended to do the same method, so my silhouette was already cut out. However, when I stuck the paper horse on, I realized how much I would like it if the staining and painting was reversed for the second piece.
So, at that point, I took a pencil and traced the horse shape onto the stained wood. Then I carefully hand painted the horse on in white, and sanded after so more wood grain would show through the stain. This method definitely took longer.
Had I known I was doing this beforehand, I imagine I would have kept the outer part of the silhouette that I cut out and then spray painted like I did the first one.
Does this make any sense?
Now that it is all done, I am quite pleased with the final product.
I opted not to add a picture frame to my horse silhouettes, but you could certainly do so if you prefer.
If you decide to try this project, keep in mind that you can do any shape you want and use any paint color. You just need to be able to trace the outline of an object or your subject’s profile, and you’re good to go!
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Other Projects You Might Enjoy
This silhouette art was quite easy to make. If you’re on the fence, go for it! Let me know how it turns out!
If you’d like more craft ideas, try one of these:
Beautiful! What size is the finished product? Thank you!
You done good! Thanks for the breakdown which makes it a doable project 🙂
So creative with your post – measured the wall sections where I wanted the horses to go. Then I sent the hubs out to the garage to plank some wood for me to the size I wanted.
How exactly did you attach the planks together?
I absolutely love these – awesome! I wish you had these for sale, I would definitely purchase! Very cool!
I ABSOLUTLY LOVE THE ART! beautiful, i want to make one of these, would love to feature them, if that would be ok please let me know<br />lauren
Marvelous! Thanks for sharing! Popping over from The Cottage Market. :)<br />~ Heidi
This is amazing! I love this! Thank you sooo much for the tutorial! I'm going to do one for my daughters birthday party! I'm excited! I have a cricut but I think I'm going to turn my iphone into a projector with the horse image and trace it on a paper and cut it out. Somedays I wish I could trade my Cricut for a Silhouette but I did manage to get Sur Cut A lot I just need a windows
Thank you for saying that you used your Silhouette to make this!! I'd been looking for a horse shape online for awhile to also try to replicate this piece, and couldn't find anything I liked. When I saw your site, I fell in love with the horse shape you used and was able to find it on Silhouette's site still! Thank you!
Hi I love these! Would you sell two like this to me? Do you take custom order?<br />Thanks<br />Deborah@axiomrealestate.com<br />
I love this. My husband and I are from Kentucky so the horse is a reminder of home. Plus my grandparents used to have some huge horse print in their living room over their couch and this would be a great tribute. Thanks for the tutorial. Now I know what to do with the old pallets I wouldn't let him throw away.
I love Arabians and own 4 real live Arabian horses. So I want to make the horse art on the right. But I have a long way to go since I barely know what<br />Silhouette Art is. ha ha