How to hire a wedding, Bat Mitzvah,CindiSilhouettes@gmail.com or corporate silhouette artist. Wedding planners, event planners, this will make your event! Cindi often charges local rates with enough notice. Have scissors will travel!
Most people go to "The Knot" to find a wedding silhouette artist, however, most silhouette artists do not make enough to advertise on The Knot (which is thousands a year), we would rather charge you less and have you find us organically. The best way to find a good silhouette artist is to merely type in some of the less expensive agencies and type in the reviews. You really don't want one that does not do the interior details or use the correct paper. There is an artist who uses sticky vinyl and cuts out the same picture for all, mostly children. He is fast, but the vinyl does not lead to a lasting profile, nor a clean, smooth cut. In England they use paper from a craft store, with scotch tape to stick it down. This will fade in time, and they are not mounted except to immediately fame, or put in a drawer. They are put in a folder that is loaded with an ad on the back about the artist. They are smaller, (this is a good thing) and have no inside cuts so they are mounted with no mess, and the artists roam (more fun), but can normally do just 12 per hour, due to the walking. However, they have a unique, classic, sophisticated style, and look beautiful being solid black.
Odd, but Martha Stewart who does not really know the art, hires som of the least talented silhouette artists, mostly due to either the city they live in or their knowledge of search engine, and the nice computer silhouettes they have on line. She did not know that a good silhouette artist does groupings, and is personable, and can do the details such as pearls, without a sketch. People are still happy since they don't know the difference, but many of these kinds of artists make someone have a thicker bodice, and also, a bulky old-fashioned approach.
The problem is that you can't tell who is legit and fake on the net, as some people call themselves a silhouette artist and they use other people's work (such as Augustine Edouart's full figure cuttings of children) on their site as their own, or worse, they use a computer image. This is fine for an internet order, and it would be no different than if you used a photoshop ap and just darkened a photo. It would not be an authentic silhouette hand-cut from sight without sketch (which makes the accuracy less). I don't take internet silhouette orders, but will come to your city for a school, church, no-profit, museum, fashion or children's store event or fundraiser. I do many silhouette weddings and Bat Mitzvahs and those fun New York City fashion events.
DisneyWorld and DisneyLand used to hire the best silhouette artists when Walt and Roy Disney were around. I actually worked at Disney World when Roy Disney was alive! We worked from a very strict, lease operator, Jess Rubio, who made us cut the perfect profile in one cut with no mistakes. He would have spies examine our work and trash, to make -sure we did not waste a second of precious amusement park time re-cutting our mistakes and actually creating an awkward cut that was rough. We learned that the faster we were with our first impression portrait miniature profile cut the better the likeness and the smoother the cut.
Good news! Some of the original silhouette artists still work at DisneyLand and are good. I worked there before they even worked there. Silhouette cutting of exact portraits and profiles and full-length individuals by sight, is complicated and hard to master.
"How did you learn this?" People ask. I did not. I did not read someone's book that says all faces look this way and cut the profiles similar and that it does not have to have a likeness. This is what most of the non Disney artists do. They can not do the beautiful couples together either, or the difficult hair and earring, details. All, but the English, put in eyelashes. Many display their paintings of profiles or sketches of profiles. Honestly, there is not a silhouette artist in the world that was not first a portrait artist. Most of these artists who display a painted or pencil sketch is doing it like tracing from a photo, not live as we had to do at Disney. The questions you want to ask are: How many people can you do in an hour? It should be at least 20, 30 is better. Can you hand-cut couples together? That is adored at weddings, and if they are really talented they can do full families of 3 to 13 from one sheet of paper. I was born an artist from a mother who could draw portraits and was an architectural designer. As a child I drew and painted full face portriats and profiles. I also painted and sketched animals, and nature. I love doing silhouettes for holiday events. My favorite cities to work are Dallas, Houston, Austin, New York City, Denver, Washington DC, London, LA, San Diego, and San Antonio. I love to work in Singapore too! If you want to see my work I have a channel on YouTube and am on instagram as cindi.silhouette, of course, I have silhouettesbyCindiFacebook, which shows much of my work. . .I donate a part to charity! You can hire me as a fundraiser for your non-profit or favorite toy, children's, stationery store, or monogram shop.
