Silhouette art originated in Europe in the early 1700's and became very popular in Britain in the early twentieth century. People would visit a silhouette artist to have their profile drawn. You could do this yourself by taping a piece of paper to the wall and sitting a model in front of the paper (sideways on) and shine a lamp or torch onto the model so that their shadow is cast onto the paper. Draw around the outline of their shadow with a pencil, cut it out and stick it onto a contrasting piece of card. This same technique of crating a profile made many silhouette artists wealthy and famous.



To make a reindeer silhouette clock you wont need any reindeers to model for you, but you will need...

Black paint, gift wrapping paper, thick card or an old grocery box, a length of tinsel, a clock mechanism and clock hands (you will find these at craft shops or Maplin) and a print out of pattern of reindeers and Santa in his sleigh. You will find the link to the printable pattern below.

Stick the print out onto the back of the gift wrapping paper so that you can still see the reindeers and Father Christmas. Santa has 9 reindeer, but there is only enough room on the clock face for five.

When the glue is dry, cut out the reindeer and the sleigh.

To make the clock face, draw around a large dinner plate or a tea tray onto some card. An old grocery box is great. Cut out two identical circles, and glue them together so that the lines in the cards structure cross, this will give the clock face extra strength.

Once the glue is dry, paint the clock face black or dark blue. Again leave to dry.

Push a pencil through the centre of the clock face ready to attach the clock mechanism. Be very careful and use the old Plasticine trick - Put a ball of Plasticine on the table, put your card on top of it where you need the hole to be, and push the pencil through the card and into the Plasticine.

Arrange the sleigh and reindeer profiles on the clock face t look as if they are in flight and stick them down.

Push the clock spindle through the hole and push on the hands. The mechanism has a hole for hanging the clock on the wall.

Finally stick a length of tinsel around the edge of the clock face. Use pegs to hole the tinsel in place whilst the glue dries, and then remove the pegs.

Put a battery in the clock and then time yourself whilst you name all of Santa's nine reindeer.