Saturday, January 30, 2016

Mini Artists Galleries - Leonardo Da Vinci: First Post - Completed


Let's try a post a day the rest of the month, all two days!  I'm going crazy here!

Okay, I got a little crazy on this post, sorry. ;D  I knew I was going to which is why it took me so long to blog about it.

This was a piece I found on CloudsFactory's website.  My sister loves Leonardo Da Vinci and I found this fun little piece.  I showed it to her to make sure she'd like it, since it is kind of cartoony.  Of course between the two of us we had to mess around with it a little bit.  To the right is the original design.  My sister though it might look nice with the wording surrounded by Leonardo and his works.  So it took a bit of playing around, but I finally came up with something that I thought looked good.  But I won't show it to you now, you'll either have to read to the end, or scroll down to the end.

I decided to use one of my favorite fabrics for this 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen by Picture this Plus, since, again, it's a parchment like color.

First off, was the wording.  I was actually driving home from work, ready to stitch this as soon as I got home, when I came up with an idea.  Leonardo was famous for trying to keep his works secret, one way that he attempted to do so was by writing mirrored.  I found a little information about that here if you're interested.  So I thought it would be cool to stitch the writing backwards.  However, it was a big leap so I consulted my sister to find out her thoughts and she thought it was a great idea, so I did it.
 Here is it mirrored, or unmirrored, so you can read it:

The next thing I stitched was Leonardo himself.

First off I did the three sketches at the same time, which were surprisingly close in color to the fabric I chose.  The titles are links that lead to webpages about the images.
Aerial Screw Self Portrait Vitruvian Man
First Color
Remainder of Cross Stitches
Back Stitched
"Framed"

Next, the paintings, again the titles go to pages to learn more about them, if you're so inclined.
Lady with an Ermine The Last Supper Mona Lisa
Some Colors
Rest of Colors
"Framed"

I did change the color on the frames for these.  It was supposed to be the golden yellow that you can see in the clothing of the fourth figure from the right in The Last Supper.  I changed it to Kreinik #4 braid, Vintage Gold.

And finally, all together:

It's now in the process of being framed, so hopefully I'll get that posted faster than some of my other pictures.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Mini Artists Galleries - Leonardo Da Vinci
Pattern by: CloudsFactory
Started Stitching: December 3, 2015
Finished Stitching: December 9, 2015
Fabric: 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen
Floss: DMC 2 over 1, Kreinik 1 over 1
Percentage: 100% complete
Stitches: 2,866 out of 2,866

7 comments:

  1. It looks awesome! I love the idea of the mirrored writing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've done a fantastic job creating your own design. The little icons are so cute and I love the idea of the mirror writing. It's truly a unique piece. Well done! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awesome =) I love the change in the arrangement you made and the fact that the writing is mirrored =) Great finish =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love the way you arranged this design and the mirror writing is inspired!
    Did you see the mini Mona Lisa on my blog recently?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had actually missed that, I went back through your posts to find it. It looked great. It always amazes me how much detail cross stitch designers can get into such small pieces.

      Delete
  5. I love the changes you made particularly with the writing.

    ReplyDelete