Yarn Painting

Yarn paintings are literally what they sound like, paintings made of yarn. Originally yarn paintings were from the Huichol Native Americans. Almost all Native Americans did not have a written language. Instead what many of them did was draw or paint their stories in various ways. The Huichol had different ways of doing this but developed a unique way of using dyed yarn and resin to make pictures. We will do this but use store bought yarn and glue instead.

Step 1: Materials

Think Paper- Thick paper is best so the glue doesn't weaken it enough to possibly tear it.

Scissors- For cutting the paper and yarn.

Yarn- Pick color based off what your picture will be, one role of each will be more than enough.

Glue- Scotch Scrapbookers Glue works best because it has a flat head and pointed head.

Step 2: Design

I personally had wanted a peaceful yet unique type of picture. I figured the tree design would be calming. The colors were very psychedelic but would be too difficult to do with yarn. I settled for the split page design with the tree entering each of the windows with each window having a different background color.

Step 3: Planning

First of all, draw out what you want in pencil. (Sorry many of the pictures are sideways) This will come in handy because you can literally paste the yarn right on the lines and have a detailed layout of where everything goes.

Step 4: Pasting the Border and Tree

Start with the borders. Doing the borders gives you an understanding of how this material works. Along with that you see just how much material you might need. Once you have the borders start with the more intricate pieces first (the tree). You will do this because if you try doing the background first you will eventually have to figure out ways to put the tree in and it will not look nearly as neat. If you want a certain piece of yarn to be thinner you can twist the piece more and tighten it up.

Step 5: Pasting Around the Tree+Decorations

I had liked the idea of the little spots in the reference pictures I had taken. For the little spots I chose random spots and dotted some glue and curled yarn into little swirls on the glue dots. For the moon start with the center and work your way out. If you put some distance between each yarn strip you can make it multi-color and give it a interesting color swirling design. Once done with this start filling in the remainder white space. you can do this with one very long yarn strand that wraps in on itself. Or If you want a design that shows more of a current or "strokes" cut each piece and paste it individually.