The Silhouette Shop

Our Shop - buy your own silhouette on-line

In time honoured fashion, and with years of experience, our artists cut their unique paper portraits using just a pair scissors. We are quite happy to work from either digital or real photographs. Silhouettes are mounted onto card, and can be posted anywhere in the world, where they are bound to be admired for their accuracy and attention to detail.

If you're planning on send us a photograph or two, do read the notes on suitable photographs at the bottom of this page.

The Artists of The Roving Artist & Co offer a variety of methods to have your own silhouette (or those of friends and family) made to commission:

Plain Black, Card Mounted Silhouettes are available cheaply and easily by post anywhere in the world. Either send us a photo or order a Gift Voucher.
Silhouette Gift Vouchers are a great idea for Xmas and birthdays, and are often the easiest way to order your own silhouettes.
Regency Style, Glass Mounted Silhouettes by Charles Burns.
Sittings arranged either at Charles' studio or your own home.
NEW! Our first set of postcards!
A set of 6 life drawings by Charles Burns sold as sounvenir postcards.

Card Mounted, Black Paper Silhouettes

The traditional scissor-cut portrait!

Available either by visiting the artist's studio, or by sending a photo. We offer an attractive discount if you order now from the web-site, and then send a photo. Photos can be sent by post, as an attachment to an e-mail, or even direct from your mobile phone (if you can work out how to do that!)

Silhouettes can be cut either left or right, irrespective of the photo. For each photograph you'll receive a single silhouette mounted on 7"x 5" acid-free white card, with the artist's signature below. You will also receive a Certificate of Authenticity to guarantee the value of your silhouette to future generations. To further guard against imitiation by lesser artists, each silhouette has a unique identifying number. This number is also stamped onto a second copy retained in the artists' archives.

Studio price: £30.00 (home visits, or when visiting the artist's studio)
Home visits are subject to a minimum charge, which varies by locality. Please enquire.
Discount internet price: £25.00 (when ordering from this web-site) inc worldwide p&p

Now send a photo by e-mail

N.B. Paypal payments will not be accepted until AFTER we receive a suitable photo. If your photo does not arrive, or if it is unsuitable for any reason, you will get a message from Paypal saying your payment has not been accepted, and an e-mail from us explaining why.

Alternatively send your photos, together with a cheque payable to "Charles Burns" for £25 per image to:

The Roving Artist
PO Box 2041
Emmer Green
READING
RG4 8ZG
U.K

Be sure to quote "internet order" to get your discount. Note that we can receive cheques in US$ or €uros ($45/€37 per image) but please add a surcharge of $/€10 to allow for bank charges.

Silhouette Gift Vouchers

These are recommended as the easiest way of ordering a silhouette, whether for yourself, your own family, or as a gift for relatives or friends. The voucher itself is an attractive presentation in a Roving Artist portfolio telling you all about the work we do.

A sample Gift Voucher, together with it's presentation portfolio

Having received the voucher you just need to post it back to us together with a suitable photo. If you have a digital camera you can e-mail us the photo, and simply quote the unique "Silhouette number" on the Voucher. There is no time limit, and notes on taking and sending suitable photos are included. The photos you send can be either full-length, or the more traditional head-and-shoulders style (illustrated below). All postage costs are included in the price of the Voucher.

If you know which artist you'd like to cut your silhouettes (for instance if you've had your own silhouette cut at an event and wish to have other family members cut "to match") then you can enter the artist's name on the voucher. If you leave it blank we will pass your photos to which ever artist is most quickly available. Having received your photos we would normally aim to post silhouettes within 7 days. The only exception would be if you have requested a particular artist who is away for some reason, in which case you will be informed.

Price: £25.00 inc worldwide p&p (equivalent to approx US$45 or €38)

Notes on taking photographs

This is the photograph from which the silhouettes above were cut.

The ideal photo should show the whole head and shoulders, preferably against a plain sort of background. Here we've used flash (as with many modern cameras, we didn't get a choice!), but it would have been better without. If you do use flash keep a few feet between the subject and the background, to lessen the effects of the flash.

The face should be "normal". hard to know what normal is, but please avoid extremes of expression, eg: laughing, shouting, etc. Photos taken at parties often don't work for this reason!

If you don't have, and can't get, anything suitable, please just send what you do have. Our artists are experienced at coping with what they get, and if we really can't help you, we can always send it back!

If using a digital camera, note we do not need huge files! As long as your photo is clear and well composed, it need be no bigger than your computer screen when displayed at full size. We can work using output from almost any digital camera.

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