Tree Silhouettes: Shadow Portraits from the Land

Look around your home and notice the things you have placed close to you. They may not be of great value or practical use, but they are things that make you happy because you find beauty or peace when you take the time to see them. We have filled our home with things that have meaning for us; small objects of joy, many of them books, boxes, inkwells, rocks and fossils. Then there are silhouettes!

Silhouettes were an inexpensive form of portraiture beginning in the 18^th century before the development of photography. They were cut with scissors or knives from black paper or paper blackened with soot. Before “shadow portraits” became a commercial business many made them at home using candlelight and seating the subject so the light would cast a shadowy sharp-edged profile.  My interest in silhouettes began when my father-in-law gave me a silhouette of my husband, Jerry, as a third grader cut by one of my sisters-in-law. The silhouette was placed on fragile yellowed paper inserted in a decoratively cut piece of cardboard. I immediately framed it under glass to keep it safe.

Many years ago we took a trip to London and while there visited the Victoria and Albert museum. I will always remember a long, dark hallway where an exhibit of drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci were hung. The light was dimmed to protect the drawings and you had to stand for a few minutes before your eyes adjusted to the dark and you could see the luminescent sketches. In the museum gift shop they had two beautiful silhouettes in the traditional black frame with the image inside an oval and a tiny gold leaf at the top to hang it from. I brought them home with me and have cherished them ever since.

As I continued to think about this art form I came across a superb book written by Emma Rutherford and published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow. She writes of the origin of silhouettes as being the “profiles on ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery”. She explores the idea of the shadow being the essence of the soul and reminds readers of Peter Pan’s horror when he lost his shadow and thus, his place in the world. 

This book provides endless hours of enlightenment and wonder. Silhouettes were sometimes painted on whitened glass. Here is a photo from the book of what appears to be an eyeglass case.

I love the oval frames of silhouettes and the fact that many can be held in your hand. This photograph from the book of a silhouette front and back reveals this silhouette was painted on glass by Mr. Holland, a miniature painter from Dublin.

People had silhouettes made of their beloved pets, this one of Hector, the lurcher is a fine example.

While reading I learned that silhouettes can also be white on black. Thus, the cameo given to me by my mother when I was a teenager can be considered a shadow portrait. The cameo belonged to my great grandmother and I love the stark image and unique coloration. Previously, I had only seen cameos of cream on an apricot or coral colored shell background. For many years I was afraid to wear the cameo, thinking I might lose it. During the pandemic I purchased a chain for it and have been wearing it ever since! I think the silhouette cameo ties me to two strong women in my life.

When we lived in the loft in Houston I purchased two additional silhouettes from David Lackey, at the Antiques and Interiors on Westheimer. It was a thrill to see him in person as I had read an article about him and his home in Houston’s magazine, Paper City. He might have been horrified to know I wanted the additional silhouettes to cover some of the too many wall plugs in the loft. I think they looked marvelous in the 100 year-old building with antique brick walls and I continue to enjoy them every day now as they hang in a group on a book case in my laundry room (more about the laundry in another post).

So, with the love of silhouettes inside me I went about life. Little by little we work the land, caring for what is there and augmenting the existing plants with drought tolerant, pollinator attractors. I came across several types of trees I had never seen before. To help me identify them we purchased an app for my phone – Seek by iNaturalist. I took a walk and photographed them. Seek gives me suggestions of what plant I might be looking at, and then I read online to see if what they suggest makes sense. As we live in the Edwards Plateau on limestone with an arroyo bordering the land it made sense that we would have Escarpment Black Cherry and Texas Walnut or Little Black Walnut. The small trees with gray bark similar to crape myrtles I had been calling “suede trees” because their tiny leaves felt like suede to me are persimmons.

I decided to create silhouettes of the trees and hang them in a grid in the back hallway leading to the stairs. This project is still in progress, but I’ll write about where I am at this point.

I began by tearing some of my Arches print paper in half and soaking it in a mixture of water, Community Porch tea bags and Winsor Newton Squirrel Brown ink. I wanted the paper to be slightly cream rather than stark white.

While the paper was drying I made a list in my journal of all the trees on our land, both native and “imported”: Red Oak, Bur Oak, Monterrey Oak, Live Oak, Persimmon, Little Black Walnut, Escarpment Cherry, Texas Red Bud, Chaste Tree, Evergreen Sumac, False Willow, Scrub Oak, Arbequina Olive, Acoma Crape Myrtle, Arizona Cypress, Agarita, Japanese Plum Pine, Carolina Buckthorn/Indian Cherry, Texas Mountain Laurel. Still searching for one more to make an even 20!

Many of the trees are deciduous so I need to keep this in mind as I make the silhouettes. I don’t clip more than one type at a time as they dry and curl even when in water. I try to choose a representative piece of a branch when clipping. If there is a bloom, nut, or fruit present this gives a more complete picture of the specimen.  I like specimens where some of the leaves have holes in them or places chewed off by insects. I position the specimens in different ways, trying to create an interesting individual visual as well as an interplay between the group of silhouettes. Using a thin leaded mechanical pencil, I trace around the specimen carefully. This sometimes means I need to groom the specimen so there are not leaves on top of leaves. I then use small watercolor brushes and paint the silhouette with black India ink.

When the ink is dry, I use an embosser to place my initials in the bottom left corner and glue one of the specimen labels in the lower right-hand corner. This gives the scientific name, common name, and habitat of each tree.

Here is a photo of the Escarpment Black Cherry with its tiny bunches of cherries.

And one of the Texas Walnut or Little Black Walnut

Finally, here is a photo of the work in progress. Can’t wait to get back to it!!!

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