Enhancing a Focal Point

My latest project is this round from My Pink Sugar Life, above. You saw it in yesterday’s post where I talked about the background stitch. I’m making it for my husband’s office and it will sit near the Pippin avocado, below, I also stitched it for him.

The canvas looks like it has a couple of possibilities for focal points. Once you’ve decided on the focal points, you can decide on your stitching.

1. Look at the blank canvas & decide what, if any, focal points are there. Here there are two, the word “Guac” and the pink heart.
2. Decide what the main focal point will be. There should be one that is more important than the others and there must be one on every canvas (otherwise the needlepoint is dull. My husband did not like the heart. That makes the word the focal point.
3. Has the designer done anything to make the focal point stand out? Can you enhance that? The designer has put Guac in a different color, so it stands out. It also nicely echoes the outline of the avocado. I can enhance this by choosing a thread that attracts more attention. I did just that by picking a metallic for the word.
4. Can you de-emphasize non-focal point areas? I did this by picking a non-metallic color for the other letters. You can see how this choice makes Guac stand out even more in the picture below.
5. Can you create a secondary focal point? My initial plan was to emphasize the heart by stitching it in metallic, matching the avocado’s flesh, against a matte thread for the rest of the seed. That contrast in texture would put some emphasis on the heart. Since contrast is key to creating focal points, what can I do? See below the next picture for my solution.

In other avocado canvases I’ve stitched (this is my third one, all different), I have emphasized the seed by padding it. There is already a contrast in color because the seed is dark against the pale green flesh. By choosing a matte thread, I’ll get a contrast in texture. If I decide to pad it slightly, I’ll get a height difference. It will remain a secondary focal point because the metallic letters, just like the metallic avocado flash, catch out attention first.

I finished stitching on Saturday night and will frame it this morning.