Subway art in NYC is similar to rughooking in that many points of color add up to an image. I was in NYC in early June for a Wordpress Wordcamp. Even though I was there to learn more about the software that runs my website, I never stop looking for patterns and designs. New York is a very rich …
faces
Sauder Village Rug Hooking Workshop 2009
It was another wonderful week at the Sauder Village Rug Hooking Workshop. I spent the week with Diane Phillips. I had taken her class before and I looked forward to the week. Some people in the class hooked human faces, others hooked animals. Sauder Village always hangs a beautiful …
How to Hook a Face Workshop
In March, I taught faces at Southern Teachers' Workshop. The difficulty of the assignment was that I only had one day to teach and whose face was I going to hook? I wanted to hook a portrait of my grandmother, but the students in the class would not be excited about that. I decided to teach the …
Rug Hooking a Face: The Background
This portrait of my imaginary woman is now complete. Notice the lower part of her neck. I think the uneven edge actually gives the neck more dimension. I did do a bit of tweaking once all the hooking was done. About the time I added the sashing, I decided to soften her forehead some more and …
Rug Hooking a Face: Added the Neck
Above is a picture showing the neck added. The photo on the right is the picture on the left with a transparent version of an earlier face. Note how the chin line is exactly the same as it was before. I added a neck, ears and hair and she looks completely different. This is a very important …
Rug Hooking a face: Adding Hair
Notice how different she looks when I add the hair. I kept the forehead shape as it was hooked in the last post. I may decide to soften that later. I removed the one holding line I had hooked in the first step because the shape of the line was not quite right. I concentrated on value when I …
Rughooking a face: Adjusting the Forehead Shading
Now I have the face completely filled in so I can make some adjustments. The curve on the forehead is bothering me. I ripped out where the two colors join and moved the line to make it softer. I will probably move the hair onto the forehead later, so I am not too worried about the little jag at …
Rughooking a face: Hooking the Nose and Lips
In this photo I have both eyes hooked. The light wool under the woman's left eyebrow looks odd, but I will leave it in for now and re-evaluate this later. I'm not crazy about the nose at this stage either, but again, I will look at it again later after the face is completely hooked. The lips …
Rughooking a face: How to hook the eye
When I begin a new project, I try to use all the colors right away. Here I have a bit of the value I intend to use for hair on the left. This is actually a piece of dark green wool. It is there to help me see the value that I will use later. I hooked the face values on the forehead first and …
Green Blurry Foilage Background Continues
I hooked more of the background and my impression now is that the background will work. There still is not enough hooking to tell for sure, but I will keep hooking. The look I want is blurry leaves or bushes in the background. I have an astigmatism and cataracts and my vision is always a bit …
Rug Hooking Some Background on Woman with Baby
Here I am testing out the background. I plan to use three slightly different shades of green spot dyes. The background will begin dark at the bottom and gradually lighten. I am not 100% sure it will work at this point. I will continue hooking until I am convinced it will not work -- or I get the …
Rug Hooking the Mother’s Blue Head Scarf
I chose blue for the headscarf because it is a complementary color with orange. Brown is really just a dark orange. I didn't try to get too fancy with the scarf because I do not want the attention there. I want you to notice the baby and the mother, not what the mother is wearing. I used scraps …
