Planning a Canvas

I fell in love with the Charley Harper canvas pictured here the moment I saw it. Happily my husband loved it too and bought it for me from Ruth Schmuff.

Now I’m itching to stitch it.

It’s a great example of how I plan a canvas. Often I start by deciding the overall look I want.

Harper’s style is pretty flat and matte but I’d like this to be a bit more interesting, so I’m going to take cues from live cheetah for the stitches. Cheetah cubs have spiky fur where there is gray, so I’m going to do those areas in Turkeywork. The rest of their fur and Mom’s tail will be Tent.

I’ve done pieces of his that are more like his prints and some that have more texture. This will be the most different from his original piece I’ve tried. He’s one of my favorites and I’ve loved him since I was 10.

Thinking about threads is always a big part of my planning. Often it’s the starting point. I tend to think in terms of threads and stitches, so deciding this is often a starting point.

The eyes will be metallic, outlined in perle cotton. I’ll use perle for the claws and noses, with something matte for the paw pads. The claws will be Cross Stitch and the paw pads tent. I’m not sure about the noses.

The presence of Turkeywork pretty much determines the focal point, but I think those curvy motion lines deserve to be an accent too. So I’m going to stitch them in metallic, maybe even in Whipped Chain, I’ll have to try one to see.

I haven’t decided about the background. At the moment I’m leaning towards a darning pattern in High Cotton, but that’s likely to change.

I looked at my stash and see that I have black perle cotton and the metallics I need. I’m picking up the wools Wednesday and will save the background for later.

The canvas is in balance so far with few textures, somewhat more stitches, and the most colors, but still in a small range. But that’s OK, I don’t have to have the whole thing planned out to stitch it, I just need to have decided what’s important and where I’m going with it.