The Queen's Hearts

The Queen's Hearts silhouette in black and white.

The Queen's Hearts

 

That same Queen of Hearts, who baked all those tarts
That we've heard of in story and fable
Sent word once a year, that both peasant and peer
Should collect all the hearts they were able
And some hearts were great, and some hearts were small
And some had hardly a heart at all.

The Queen's Hearts silhouette in red and white.

Air Transportation Silhouettes

       The air transportation silhouettes include the following:

• Montgolfier Balloon (A.) - first successful balloon 1781
• Gifford's Balloon (B.) - first powered airship 1852
• Dirigible - Zeppelin (C.)
• Lilienthal's Glided (D.) - first successful glider 1898
• Wright Brother's Plane (E.) - first successful motor driven plane 1903
• Lindberg's Plane 1927 (F.)
• Streamlined Plane (G.)
  

Halloween Silhouettes for The Classroom

        These silhouettes (cut from black paper for decorating windows or cut from white paper for decorative borders) are made by folding a sheet of paper into three sections as show below. The folded sections are then folded once more to make three sections of equal size. Sketches for the silhouettes should be made twice the width and exactly the height of the paper in its final fold. When satisfactory sketches are completed and after care has been taken to have them symmetrical and with no cutting to be done through the lefthand folds of the paper, one half of the sketch (vertically) should be sketched or traced on the folded paper and cut out.

Students will need either black, white, or orange construction paper and a pair of scissors to assemble this paper Halloween craft.

Halloween Lantern Designs for The Classroom

       Illustrated below are two simple methods for cutting and assembling paper Halloween lanterns for the classroom. Included also are a few simple silhouettes that students may copy to emphasize the theme: a black cat, a black bat, a witch with a cane and Jack-o-lantern.

Students will need black construction paper, scissors, a ruler and glue to complete these projects.

The Snowman's Resolution

The Snowman's Resolution
by Aileen Fisher

The snowman's hat was crooked
And his nose was out of place
And several of his whiskers
Had fallen from his face.

But the snowman didn't notice
For he was trying to think
Of a New Year's resolution
That wouldn't melt or shrink.

He thought and planned and pondered
With his little snow-ball head
Till his eyes began to glisten
And his toes began to spread;

And at last he said, "I've got it-
I'll make a firm resolve
That no matter what the weather
My smile will not dissolve."

Now the snowman acted wisely
And his resolution won
For his splinter smile was wooden
And it didn't mind the sun!

A Rainy Day Game

A Rainy-Day Game

by K. G. Buffman

A little soap and water

And a little pipe of clay

Will make the time go faster

On a rainy day.

Bubbles in the bowl of water

Bubbles in the air,

Bubbles on the mantelpiece,

Floating everywhere.

Molly had a clay pipe,

Richard had another;

Nothing could be better for

A sister and a brother.

Paper Cuts of Jigging Pigs!

        Above are jigging (dancing) pigs and below is a single paper cut pig with a turnip. Have fun including these silhouettes in your crafts for the classroom!

Vintage Egyptian Paper-Cuts for The Classroom

        These vintage Egyptian paper cuts are for your classroom projects. Depicted here are designs of costume, text "Egypt", scarabs, lotus, jewelry etc...

Paper Silhouette Camel Cuts

       Paper Camel Cuts for teachers and students to use in the classroom or in art projects. The center one has a rider.

Paper Church Silhouettes

       These paper cuts or silhouettes of the front and back of a church, plus stained glass windows would look lovely in any Sunday School. I've restored them for students and teachers, enjoy.

• Find more stained glass windows to color at Color The Bible
• Craft stained glass windows from melted crayons

St. Patrick's Day Silhouettes

       I will collect for this post, those few St. Patrick's Day paper cuts that I happen across in the archives. So far there are: angelic harps, a vintage pipe with shamrocks and a rabbit nibbling on a piece of clover.

St. Patrick Silhouettes for the classroom and child paper crafts.

The Proud Miss O'Haggin

Silhouettes used to illustrate the poem.

The Proud Miss O'Haggin

by John Bennett.

The proud Miss O'Haggin

May ride in her wagon,

Her landau, or drag, in

The park all the day;

But she'd give all her leisure

And wealth beyond measure

For one half the pleasure

Down Haggerty's way,

When young Danny Gilligan

Drives Maggie Milligan

Down Murphy's hill ag'in

In his "coopay."

Silhouette Paper Cuts by Baroness Maydell

The two sisters by Baroness Maydell

A lady or a bride by Baroness Maydell

Mother Goose Auto Parade - mini book

Paper mini book by Harvey Peake, restored by kathy grimm. Front Cover

       This adorable mini book is by Harvey Peake. It comes with rhymes and illustrations of automobiles only found in the imagination of a child. Assemble it as a mini book or cut the patterns out and pin them into a boarder in your classroom. Either way, little ones are sure to enjoy coloring them in and learning their nursery rhymes.

Goosey, goosey gander
Whither do you wander?
Of your winged motor car
Are you growing fonder?

A frog he would a-wooing go
In a very stylish way,
So he bought a frogmobile, you know,
And the lady frog said "Yea!"

Jack be nimble!
Jack be quick!
Jack, jump over the candlestick!
Jack jumped when something
struck his wheel,
For his candlestick
was an automo-
bile!

The Man in the Moon,
Come down too soon,
And asked his way to Norwich.
In his crescent machine,
Made of cheese so green,
He drove off after his porridge.

Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep,
And didn't know where to find them;
But she turned them all to automobiles,
And now she rides behind them.

"Will you come into my auto?"
Said the spider to the fly.
"There is room in my Web-tonneau
And I'll join you by and by."

There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children
She didn't know what to do.
But she mounted the shoe
On a big motor car,
And now there is room
For them all without jar.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her;
He made a car of the pumpkin shess,
And there he kept her very well.

There was an old woman lived under a hill
On auto'bile wheels that wouldn't stand still.
So she drove around selling her cranberry pies,-
And she's the old woman who never told lies.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?''
"Oh, now that I have a car," she said,
"It grows twice as fast, you know."

Japanese Silhouette Version of Old Mother Hubbard

       Here is a unique set of silhouettes or paper cuts of a Mother Goose Rhyme, "Old Mother Hubbard" done up in a Japanese motif. The silhouettes are mounted on top of an ancient Japanese kimono design.

Make Shadows on Your Wall

       Shadowgraphy has progressed a long way from the rabbit on the wall; but in the house, ambition in this accomplishment does not often extend further than that and one or two other animals, and this is why only the rabbit, dog and swan are given here. The swan can be made more interesting by moving the arm which forms his neck as if he were prinking and pluming, an effect which is much heightened by ruffling up and smoothing down the hair with the fingers forming his beak. To get a clear shadow it is necessary to have only one light, and that fairly close to the hands.

This illustration show the positioning of the hands to make a bunny, swan and dog.

The Lost Art of Silhouetting

      In the modern age, when photographic art has achieved so high a degree of perfection, most people do not stop to think that less than a century ago there did not exist any photographer at all. When our ancestors wanted to have a portrait made they had a limited choice of methods. They could have it painted, very circumstantially, in colors, for one thing; or they could content themselves with a silhouette, cut out of black paper. Of course, the latter method was the cheaper, and subsequently it became highly popular, until photography was invented.

The way in which the German Scientist, Lavater
took a silhouette.

      The word silhouette, which has been merged with most languages, was at first meant as an expression of contempt for the French Chancellor of the Exchequer, Etienne de Silhouette, who instead of adjusting the money affairs of his country, spent his time in decorating the walls of his castle with shadow portraits of his guests. The French people said that "his pictures were just as black and empty as the French Treasury." Since that time black portraits of this kind have been called "silhouettes."

      Years before the German scientist Lavater had occupied himself with drawing profiles. With the help of a wax candle he produced a shadow of his subject in full size on a white sheet, on which he then traced the outline. Later he reproduced the picture on a smaller scale, and the portrait was finished.

      The correct way of taking a silhouette is however, to cut it out of black paper by hand. It requires a great deal of mechanical skill, but at the same time a beautiful result can be accomplished when a clever person wields the shears.

      In the nineteenth century it was quite an industry to clip silhouettes. One single man, August Edouart, who lived most of the time in America, cut out nearly 100,000 portraits, and still he was one of the few who understood how to give the silhouettes the true imprint of real art.

      The greatest genius in the field of this special branch of art who ever lived was Paul Konewka. Although he died when only 31 years old he developed such dexterity in silhouette cutting that he became known all over the world. He combined a fine decorative sense with wonderful adroitness in the use of scissors. He always carried with him a pair of scissors especially constructed for this use, and he cut with such deftness that he never needed to look at the scissors.

      The most celebrated among his silhouettes are the illustrations of "Faust" and Shakespear's dramas. His figures are so charming, his portraits so animated, that even the most particular critics must yield them admiration. In any case, this black art has fostered one great master, has given lasting fame to at least one name -- Paul Konewka.

Ways to Display Scherenschnitte

      There is more than one way to display Scherenshnitte or paper cuts. Traditionally scherenshnitte have been preserved either in old scrapbook collections, under glass in traditional frames for display or as ornamentation for holidays. I have linked to a few interesting articles that my visitors can look at in order to get some less traditional ideas about how they might display their own designs here.

Framing scherenschnitte in untraditional ways.

Anatassia Elias displays her unique paper cuts inside paper toilet tubes.

An accordion cut scherenschnitte stands on it's own.

More Related Content:

• Nautical Folk Art: scherenschnitte in an unusual frame
• Scherenschnitte Stamping: Botanical Papercut
• Papercutting from old sheet music
• Jenny Wrens on old map by Kate Thorton Design
• Pop-Up paper cuts by Su Blackwell
  

Paper Cutting Patterns by Auguste Edouart

Ad from New York Tribune, 1913.

      Auguste Amant Constant Fidèle Edouart (1789–1861) was a French-born portrait artist who worked in England, Scotland and the United States in the 19th-century. He specialized in silhouette portraits.

      "Born in Dunkerque, he left France in 1814, and established himself in London, where he began his career making portraits from hair. In 1825, he began work as a silhouette portraitist, taking full-length likenesses in profile by cutting out black paper with scissors. Edouart spent fifteen years touring England and in 1829 arrived in Edinburgh. He remained there for three years, during which time he produced some five thousand likenesses." Edouart travelled in the United States ca.1839-1849, visiting New York, Boston, and other locales. He later returned to France where he worked on smaller silhouettes. They included one of the most notable writer of this period, Victor Hugo.

Old Silhouette Present To Taft

Paper Likeness of President Tyler Made by Artist Edouart in 1841.

      Washington, June 28. --Mrs. E. Nowell Jackson, related to President Tyler, has presented to President Taft the original silhouette portrait of President Tyler, made by the artist, Auguste Edouart, in Washington, in 1841. It will be placed in the White House collection of presidential portraits.

      Mrs. Jackson has always been interested in silhouettes, the old black profile portraits of the eighteenth century.

      Six years ago she picked up a rare treatise on the art written by Auguste Edouart, a Frenchman, who toured in Great Britain and the United States, and cut the picture in black paper of every king, queen, princess, president and senator in any town he visited.

I've restored the silhouette to a facsimile from the very tiny version you see in a photo scan of the original newspaper.

Related Content:

• WorldCat. Edouart, Augustin-Amant-Constant-Fidèle 1789-1861
• Smithsonian. Auguste Edouart Self-Portrait, 1843
• Flickr. Portrait by Edouart of Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788–1879)
• Library of Congress. Silhouette profile of artist Charles Fenderich, by Edouart
• Flickr. Work by Edouart
• Flickr. Silhouette in clasp of velvet choker

Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger

       Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (June 2, 1899 – June 19, 1981) was a German silhouette animator and film director. She was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg, German Empire, on June 2, 1899. As a child, she was fascinated with the Chinese art of silhouette puppetry, even building her own puppet theater so that she could put on shows for her family and friends.

      As a teenager, Reiniger fell in love with cinema, first with the films of Georges Méliès for their special effects, then the films of actor and director Paul Wegener, known today for The Golem (1920). In 1915, the young woman attended a lecture by Wegener that focused on the fantastic possibilities of animation.

      After a bit of persuasion, she convinced her parents to enroll her in the acting group Wegener belonged to, the Theater of Max Reinhardt. In an attempt to attract the attention of her distant and very-busy hero, she started making silhouette portraits of the various actors around her. This had its desired effect, and soon she was making elaborate title cards for Wegener's films, many of which featured silhouettes. 

      In 1918, Reiniger animated wooden rats and created the animated intertitles for Wegener's Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (The Pied Piper of Hamelin). The success of this work got her admitted into the Institut für Kulturforschung (Institute for Cultural Research), an experimental animation and shortfilm studio. It was here that she met her future creative partner and husband (from 1921), Carl Koch, as well as other avant-garde artists such as Hans Cürlis, Bertolt Brecht, Berthold Bartosch, and others.

      The first film Reiniger directed was Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens (The Ornament of the Enamoured Heart, 1919), a short piece involving two lovers and an ornament that reflected their moods. The film was very well received. She made six short films during the following few years, all produced and photographed by her husband. These were interspersed with advertising films (the Julius Pinschewer advertising agency invented ad films and sponsored a large number of abstract animators during the Weimar period) and special effects for various feature films – most famously a silhouette falcon for a dream sequence in Part One of Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen). During this period she became the centre of a large group of ambitious German animators, such as Bartosch, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann, and Oskar Fischinger.

      In 1923, a unique opportunity came her way. She was approaced by Louis Hagen, who had bought a large quantity of raw film stock as an investment to fight the spiraling inflation of the period, who asked her to do a feature length animated film. The result was The Adventures of Prince Achmed, completed in 1926, the first animated feature film, with a plot that is a pastiche of stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Although it failed to a find a distributor for almost a year, once premiered in Paris (thanks to the support of Jean Renoir), it then became a critical and popular success.

      Reiniger anticipated Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks by a decade by devising the first multi-plane camera for certain effects. In addition to Reiniger's silhouette actors, Prince Achmed boasted dream-like backgrounds by Walter Ruttmann (her partner in the Die Nibelungen sequence) and a symphonic score by Wolfgang Zeller. Additional effects were added by Carl Koch and Berthold Bartosch.

      The success of Prince Achmed meant that Lotte Reiniger would not need a stroke of luck to make a second feature. Doktor Dolittle und seine Tiere (Doctor Dolittle and his Animals, 1928) was based on the first of the English children's books by Hugh Lofting. The score of this three-part film this time was composed by Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith and Paul Dessau.

      A year later, Reiniger co-directed her first live-action film with Rochus Gliese, Die Jagd nach dem Glück (The Pursuit of Happiness, 1929), a tale about a shadow-puppet troupe. The film starred Jean Renoir and Bertold Bartosch and included a 20-minute silhouette performance by Reiniger.  Unfortunately, the film was completed just as sound came to Germany, and release of the film was delayed until 1930 to dub in voices by different actors – the result being so unsuccessful as to ruin any enjoyment of the film.

      Reiniger also attempted to make a third animated feature, based on Maurice Ravel's opera L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Bewitched Things, 1925), but found herself unable to clear the rights for the music with an unexpected number of copyright holders. She worked with British poet, critic, and musician Eric Walter White on several films, and he wrote the early book-length essay on her work – Walking Shadows: An Essay on Lotte Reiniger's Silhouette Films, (London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf, 1931).

      With the rise of the Nazi Party, Reiniger and Koch decided to emigrate (both were involved in left-wing politics), but found that no other country would give them permanent visas. As a result, the couple spent the years 1933–1944 moving from country to country, staying as long as travel visas would allow. They cooperated with Jean Renoir in Paris and Luchino Visconti in Rome. Somehow, they still managed to make 12 films during this period, the best-known being Carmen (1933) and Papageno (1935), both based on popular operas (Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte). When World War II commenced they stayed with Visconti in Rome until 1944, then moved back to Berlin.

       In 1949, Reiniger and Koch moved to London, where she made a few short advertising films for the Ground Film Unit and John Grierson's General Post Office Film Unit. While she was living in London in the early 1950s she became friends with "Freddie" Bloom, who was the first director of the National Deaf Children's Society, and asked her to design a logo for the new charity. Reiniger responded by cutting out 4 children running up a hill. Bloom was amazed at her skill with the scissors – in a few moments she created about four different silhouettes of the children from black paper. The logo was used until the 1990s, when a design company was invited to revamp the design. The result was a very minor modification but the new design was also dropped a few years later.

      With Louis Hagen Jr. (the son of Reiniger's financier of Prince Achmed in Potsdam) they founded Primrose Productions in 1953 and, over the next two years, produced more than a dozen short silhouette films based on Grimms' Fairy Tales for BBC and Telecasting America. Reiniger also provided illustrations for the 1953 book King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green.

      Reiniger was awarded the Filmband in Gold of the Deutscher Filmpreis in 1972; in 1979 she received the Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Reiniger died in Dettenhausen, Germany, on June 19, 1981, at the age of 82.

• Lotte Reiniger biography and selection of works at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Lotte Reiniger at the Internet Movie Database
• "Born to Be Wild", a biographical excerpt from Women and Animation, a Compendium (edited by Jayne Pilling) focusing on Reiniger's childhood; part of the British Film Institute's "Drawn to be Wild" website^{[dead link]}
• "Lotte Reiniger's Silhouettes" by Abhijit Ghosh Dasitidar
• "Lotte Reiniger pictures and photos", listal.com