How to create a butterfly in string art style: This time I thoroughly explored the expanses of the Internet in search of the required sketch. There are always a lot of choices, but not everything hits the target – something is too difficult for the entry level, and something seems to be understandable and not so interesting. I was aiming to increase my experience by solving some problems during the making of the picture. For this purpose, the butterfly perfectly fitted, which consisted of several colors and had not only an external contour, but also an internal one. And it turned out to be not such a simple task as it seems at first glance.
Well, for starters, I printed out the necessary sketch and cut it out of the paper.
At hand I already had a new bundle of nails, a board, a tool and two spools of threads – orange and black.
To perform the painting, I again needed:
– a wooden plank;
– nails (25 mm);
– cotton threads.
And a great desire to create!
Butterfly conveniently located on the site of its future habitat and was fixed with an adhesive tape to not fly away anywhere. Following the example of the first work, I marked out equal distances (a little less than a centimeter) and began to beat the outer contour of our picture. Here I made the first mistake, which I realized only later. It was necessary to begin with the inner contour, since the nails lined up along the outer perimeter prevented me from scouring the internal contour in the future.
Well, I understood this only later, and for now I patiently hammered a nail behind the nail and dreamed about how soon we will develop our own group on the subject of String Art in our city, where so far this direction does not appear at every step.
Moving to the inner contour, I did not pay attention to the smallest patterns that were observed on the wings of our butterfly, since on such a scale it would be very problematic to perform.
I chose clear, large four elements inside the wings, along which, in addition, thin lines of a different color passed. I also struck them.
At this stage, the most problematic was the driving of nails with such a close neighborhood – the inner and outer contours, additional internal lines, corpuscle, mustache – all this created great difficulties, because fingers were not stitched anywhere, and the nail had to be kept somehow. Here I sometimes used pliers. But even with such support, the task turned out to be not simple.
After full nailing of the necessary contours, our template was removed.
Were waiting for the winding of threads.
At this stage, there was a choice – to wind first the inner yellow color or the outer black. Intuitively, it was easier for me to do it internally. In any case, you need to think with your head, therefore, in order not to be mistaken, I analyzed similar ready-made works on the Internet and made sure that in the quality versions the inner color was first executed first, and with the help of the outer one, the drawing of our butterfly wings elements was correctly drawn.
I will leave the remark that the drawing itself is affected not only by the position of the nails, but also by how and by which side of the nail.
Unlike the previous work, I chose a chaotic winding of threads. It was interesting how the look will turn out, because you need to have your own experience about all the details in this matter – I set this task myself.
Another challenge (not easy) was giving work volume. Studying the work of the masters, I noticed some full nails on the outer contour, which looked very elegant. At first I thought it was a scotch of the same color or some kind of plate, but when I looked closely I was convinced that these were the same threads, but wound around the whole pattern at all levels of the nail’s position.
I spent more than two hours with it, probably, but the volume contour was executed.
At that time, I already noticed that the work was on the second day, unlike the heart, which was performed in a few hours.
Everything was ready for the final stage – filling in with black. I did not want to see a transparent drawing, so I shook it long and hard, sometimes winding up some places where it seemed that the winding is not quite homogeneous.
Although the winding and chaotic, but it is not done anyhow. Still, some layer and pattern of application are observed.
In general, the chaotic winding is not so chaotic. Here such here a paradox!
Filling the black with the final color was difficult. Because of the abundant layer of threads on the nails, there was no more free space under the hat, so that it would be easy to pin the thread behind the ledges. The thread continually flew and it was necessary to spend decent efforts to make it all the same go in the right direction. Then it was necessary to pierce the black paths along the yellow elements of the wings.
Having tried different options, I stopped at the most attractive for the eye, when the black track was laid by a snake in both directions – the line had a light weight, which gave the drawing a great similarity with the living likeness of a butterfly.
The whole inside was filled. Only the whiskers remained intact. here I also tried two options:
First I applied the thread only to the top part of the nail. But due to the fact that the figure was in volume, these mustachioed nails began to be distinguished by the presence of iron and the picture looked incomplete – I decided to give the volume to them.
And how nice it was to watch the finished version after a few days of painstaking work! I went to bed, because my eyes no longer perceived reality.
In the morning, with fresh eyes, I realized – the butterfly was a success! And I was successful with all the tasks set before me.
Now I do not cease to be surprised that an unprepared person can perform successfully such an interesting work of combining wood, nails and threads.
Who knows, maybe it’s luck, but maybe a talent 🙂
courtesy: livemaster
