Single figures stood against a setting sun, tall buildings on a never-ending horizon, birds taking flight in the morning sky; all are examples of how simple, yet beautifully striking silhouettes can be.

The sharp, distinctive character of silhouettes and their backdrops makes them highly impactful and brilliant inspiration for lots of different creative mediums, which we’re exploring below…

Here’s some creative prompts to get you started:

• Silhouettes can be a striking way of creating beautiful pieces of art. One craft that allows us to explore this art form is papercutting, forming sharp, precision lines like that of a silhouette. Woodland scenes and city sky lines make for particularly lovely sources of inspiration for this art form.

• Silhouettes don’t have to come in the form of objects, buildings or people though. Poetry or lyrics also make for stunning examples of how we can use words to create art in silhouette form. The beautiful work of Rob Ryan demonstrates this perfectly – click here to see how he creates art using words.

• One of the mesmerising things about silhouettes is the backgrounds they are featured against. Whether it’s a pink sunset, the view from the top of a mountain, or a misty morning in the countryside – our surroundings can often be a huge inspiration of the art we create. How does where you live or your favourite locations influence your crafts? Can you incorporate them in your next project?

• It’s easy to think that silhouettes only work in 2D form (e.g. in photographs or papercuts, as we mentioned above), but there’s lots of 3D crafts that you can explore silhouettes through. Bring a scene to life with pop-up style art - card-making is a great one to explore for this, or even lampshade making (click here to find our lampshade tutorial, and try adapting it with a silhouette design).

If you’ve been inspired by this mood board theme, don’t forget to tag us in your makes using #craftiosity on Instagram!

You can download the moodboard (for personal use) here: Silhouette Moodboard

Photo: Aadesh Choudhari