Large-scale painted silhouettes

Sep 26

Since I started this blog (and reading dozens of design blogs almost every day), I can't help but become more and more aware of trends. I have no beef with trends and get in on plenty of them, but I think it's kind of fun to chart their progress. Sometimes, when a trend feels like it is everywhere but still feels really appealing, it gets tweaked just enough to feel new. Kind of like how horizontal stripes turned on the diagonal and everyone swoons anew. For the record, I fully approve of diagonal stripes and swooning for them, particularly when I see this:

Silhouettes were EVERYWHERE for awhile (and yes, I got on board with sweet paper cutouts of my girls, and with botanical cutouts, inspired by these. If you still want to get on it, tutorial here). Mostly, the silhouettes were traditional in scale and medium, with variations, like silhouettes cuts from colorful patterned paper or Carter Kustera's painted silhouettes in color on a white ground. Lately, I've been noticing overscale versions floating around. Rather than cut-paper, they are painted, like the dog below.

[House Beautiful]

Here's another animal portrait. Love how the red makes the bear playful.

[Readymade]

There's a pink dog portrait floating around out there, too--my friend Rebecca has it in her living room--but I can't seem to find a picture of it just now.

Abstracts work, too. The key is in the strength of a solid, simple form.

[spotted on MFMB]

A few weeks ago I watched a little marathon of season 5 of Design Star, and saw this painting, made for a firehouse renovation.

[via hgtv]

In addition to the fireman silhouette on canvas, another contestant created a silhouette of the skyline right on the wall. This is part two of the trend: silhouette murals painted on the wall.

Love this Mary McDonald Chinoiserie version from a few years back.