Wednesday, November 11, 2009
More about Backgrounds and Scale
Labels:
background,
Leigh,
O'jishi,
scale
I've been trying to come up with ways to further explain scale, particularly as it pertains to O'jishi's background. It isn't easy to explain something that I don't understand 100% myself but I'll try to lay out what conclusions I've come to about scale and painted canvases to help you understand scale as it pertains to needlepoint designs.
The background of any piece needs to be less important than the foreground. After all, you don't want people looking at the large piece you labored over for 8 months and saying, "Nice background" without any comment on the central Santa or whatever! The background is the bridesmaid, not the bride of almost any piece. (Note that there are some designs without real focal points.)
Let's look at an example. This is a small stand up piece for Thanksgiving from Amy Bunger's website. Her stitched model photos are excellent and easy to see in detail.
http://www.amybunger.com/albums/album_image/6262614/4381038.htm
See how the background sky is a tiny stitch? You see it but even though a fancy overdye thread seems to be used, your brain says "sky" and then moves on to the two figures. Also note how the ground uses a larger stitch and a darker color. That makes the ground "heavier" than the "sky." You don't want a sky that overwhelms the ground any more than you want a background that overwhelms the central design. The scale is good for this piece in that the sky is a smaller scale stitch than the ground's stitch.
Compare the mostly tent stitches of the Indian to the sky and ground. They are smaller stitches than those used for the sky or ground but the various colors and the areas that are 3-D make the tent stitches more prominent. You see, having a small scale area doesn't mean the stitches themselves are tiny. It's the impact of the stitches that needs to be BIG.
Here is a stitch diagram of something called Greek Key for cross stitch. Note that each dot is a tent stitch if you are doing this for needlepoint. Each tent stitch is small, but this is a stitch unit, not one stitch here or there.
http://crossstitch.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=crossstitch&cdn=hobbies&tm=8&f=21&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.nancyhearne.com/drawingboard/greekkey.htm
(If this long link doesn't work for you, try the Tiny URL version.)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yhcbe3q
In other words, small stitches don't automatically equal tiny scale. Small stitches can increase their scale by being colorful or part of an larger design unit.
I wanted to clarify this so that you would understand that scale is important for most painted canvass, that scale doesn't necessarily mean big stitches work with big designs (or small stitches work with small designs), and that you have to suit the scale to the design.
I hope I haven't totally confused you! I'll talk about scale more as we work this piece and try to come up with clearer explanations as to why I choose the stitches I do.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
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6 comments:
It's not just the size of the stitch - it's the number of strands, the color of the thread, etc. To me, it's the whole package that makes up the scale. I'm not a good judge of scale, because I thought for sure your Rabbit Geisha's background was way too big. And yet when you were done - it was perfect!!
If you could find the same canvas stitched with two different backgrounds - good scale and bad scale, that would be a great lesson.
How much time do you take auditioning stitches and fibers?
I can't wait to see your progress on this mask!
Anon, I usually audition 3-4 background stitches, which means browsing my stitch dictionaries, then stitching up some samples. It's perhaps 3-4 hours work.
In this instance I tried out 8 different stitches over 2 days, so it was probably 6 hours total. Sometimes you get lucky and the first stitch you like works up great. Sometimes you have to hunt. But I find it all fun and of course the more stitches you try out, the better idea you have of something fabulous that might work very well for another canvas later.
Nancy, I'll see if I can find other examples of good/bad scale. Without making someone feel bad, that is!
Scale & proportion matter, more then we mostly realize. I am often struck by how many things depend on scale & proportion for their *rightness*.
A needlepoint background is no exception. Maybe the design is dominant but a badly done, colored or proportioned background can ruin even a fine piece of needlepoint.
You are so right, Marianna. I think abstracts like your bargellos even need the right scale in choosing colors and borders (if any). Important stuff, scale.
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