Saturday, June 12, 2010

My approach to designing my needlepoints (Part 1)


What is my approach to designing needlepoints? It is tempting to try to "paint" a realistic picture in needlepoint. Sometimes,...More......it's even required, or requested. As in this example of a gliding swan, designed and executed for a friend, who loves, well, swans. I think it came out quite nicely, for a realistic work.

However, even though the 8" x 11" size seemed sufficient to allow detail, in the end, the "small" size of the work (and even it took months!) forced a degree of stylization.

In the end, I decided that--since I am not willing to dedicate years to executing a single enormous realistic image--the needlepoint medium (with rigidly placed evenly sized holes) and the tent stitch (which results in a small uniformly shaped point) are better adapted to some degree of stylization, so I tend to follow this approach in my designs.

2 comments:

Pharmacy Chick said...

the swan is beautiful. is that a design of your own or a stamped one?

Star said...

It's "my" design, but I take inspiration not only from my own photographs, but also from images I find anywhere I look, including my needlepoint books. Everything I have done is for private non-commercial purposes, only. The only time I did a series of things, it was for gifts for my colleagues at work, and that was completely of my own design.
The designing is half the fun. I've only done two pre-fab kits (the "Quaint Quinces" pillow and a small sunflower motif on a sunglasses case).
Thanks for asking!

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