Creating Color and Pictorial Hooked Rugs

Pictorial Hooked Rugs

A rainy day here in Nova Scotia -  but the ocean is always with us, rain or shine. It brings to mind warmer days, holidays, and hazy days at the beach.

This pattern is a pictorial and can be made to look graphic or a little more

realistic. It all depends on color and details.

Use perspective, shadows and contrast if you want realism. Sometimes you

want depth and realistic hues to produce a true to life look.

Here are some tips I have used-

Try making about half your color values of the mat in the medium range.

This will provide a good blend of light and dark as well. If it is more than

50% medium your piece will look lacklustre.

The other half of your mat should be light or dark with some balance of

each to provide a good range of color shades.

Closer to viewer, color is most vivid. As it goes back lighten colors and they

will appear distant. It sounds counterintuitive but look at any photo of a

mountain range and you will see this in action.

Also use more figurative detail in foreground and less in background. This

is the natural way we see.

Shadows create contrast to help the eye define an object. Contrast softens

in the background and edges are less distinct.

In painting you can use a fine hair brush to give exquisite detail but hooking

rugs is a coarse medium to use, so we often have to fool the eye to

provide detail. For instance putting a shadow at the base of an object stops

the item levitating in mid air and sits it on the ground.

You must have light areas to create shadow. Think about where the light is

coming from and keep it consistent throughout you mat.

Remember - Light always travels in a straight line, it cannot turn corners.

Light from the left often appears to be morning. Usually top light indicates

daylight or bright light. Righthand light a warm afternoon effect. Don't light

from below unless you want horror film look.

Long shadows help make late evening or night look in pictorials.

Shadows are seldom black, make then a darker tone of what you are

already using. Black can flatten and make an object look like a black hole.

If you want an ultra bold graphic look ignore this advice and use pure color

and sharp contrast with little detail.I will talk about this in the future.

Enjoy the beach in the meantime - rain or shine.