String art, sometimes called also “nail and thread art” or “pin and thread art“. One of the favourite techniques of my husband and I. Perhaps the first technique of a proper do-it-yourself project we made together, shoulder to shoulder.
How does it work?
You choose a support that is in most cases a wooden board, you hammer a series of nails to form the outline of a figure, which you then complete weaving thread around the nails.
And here a new world begins to unravel.
From the preparation of the basic design to the choice of thread, from the color palette to the weaving technique… you have loads of options!
When my husband and I first approached string art, we thought the hardest part was the weaving. We discovered soon, though, that the previous steps are way longer and more complex.
Let me show you how we make a string art project.
First of all you have to prepare the basis. This is my husband’s favourite part: choosing the wooden board, cutting it, glueing pieces together in the desired shape, sanding the surface, painting. He’s always been into woodworking.
The sanding process, though, is usually a task of mine. When the chosen board is old or rough, it requires time and patience, and in our family I am the one with more patience. What you want is to have a smooth surface, without splinters: they could get entangled in your yarn during weaving and also break the fibers, moreover they could hurt you.
My husband loves wooden boards that have a 3D feeling under your fingers, to feel the real touch of wood. To give a 3D surface to the boards, he uses a metal wire brush on his drill to work all the surface: this way he can make the natural veins of the wood stand out.
We usually choose board that have a feature we like to enhance, mainly a knot. In most cases we recycled old pieces: we made a project, once, using the old discarded wooden floor of the dance studio where we met! Yes, you have to choose old pieces carefully: you never want your board to break during the making or especially after the project is completed!
At this point, we usually add the hanging kit, necessary to hang the finished project to the wall. Several string artists prefer to add it at the end, but we don’t usually find it annoying while hammering or weaving. We choose thin kits, or mill a small hollow to have the kit stand deep into the wooden board.
One task I like is choosing and adapting the figure. After deciding what to represent on our string art project, I have to draw the outline to follow with the hammering. I usually prepare a digital file of the final design: I find it easier to work on a digital media, since I don’t feel confident about my drawing skils. I can mix images, transform them, make them black and white, enhance contrast…
Another thing I like to do, mainly with photos to convert to string art, is printing them the correct size, attaching them to a window with masking tape then retracing the outline on blank paper. It’s best to choose a photo with high contrasting features, where it’s easy to spot the outlines of figures.
Also, if we want to use different colors of thread, I paint them on the basic scheme with colored pencils: use all the help you can to weave at your best!
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