Gallery
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Fractals
Fractals are the ultimate high resolution pictures. No matter how high of a resolution you use to look at them, there are always details that blur, and are left out. At first I thought this made them un-suitable for crude low resolution needlepoint designs. Then I thought, why not give it a try? I was surprised by the results.
Read this article on fractals for more information.
Galaxy
1998 - 19.5" x 19.5" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarn
I found this pattern in the Mandelbrot Set at a magnification of about 4,000,000 near the location (0.43, 0.22). It looks like an image of a far galaxy taken by a large telescope. You can see at least three levels of recursion in the design. The larger galaxy has many smaller satellite galaxies orbiting it. These smaller galaxies have their own satellites, etc.
Pinwheel
2006 - 20" x 16" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarn.
Like Galaxy, this is also a part of the Mandelbrot set. Other parts of the Mandelbrot set have an entirely different apperance than Galaxy or Pinwheel. There are many more beautiful designs here awaiting only time and effort. The colors are quite a contrast to "Galaxy", but the same sort of recursive design is present. In the case of "Pinwheel" there is an eleven fold symmetry, which is something you do not see every day.
Pentominoes
Pentominoes are like dominoes, except five squares are used to make each piece. There are twelve different shapes that can be made from five squares. Interesting puzzles can be made by using these twelve shapes as puzzle pieces.
Read this article on pentominoes for more information.
Old pentominoes
1982 - 13" x 13" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This is my very first needlepoint. It won a blue ribbon for original design at a Marin County show. My IMSAI 8080 kit computer solved the pentomino puzzles, but the overall design was done using little squares of paper on a greased up board. After this project, I was very busy in my career, and did not do another needlepoint for 13 years.
Pentominoes
1995 - 15" x 15" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This was my first attempt to use the recursion technique. The coloring scheme matches a couch in our living room.
Fornax
2003 - 20.5" x 20.5" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This is an attempt to make a visually interesting design entirely out of pentomino puzzle pieces.There is more than one level of recursion used here, as well as four different sizes of pentominoes. The color scheme suggests dynamic change, and perhaps a hint of violence.
For a detailed discussion of this project, see Anatomy of a Project - Fornax.
Penrose Tiles
Penrose tiles are based on Rodoger Penrose's discovery of a way to tile a flat surface with non periodic tiles. The designs are fun to look at.
Read this article on Penrose Tiles for more information.
Kites and Darts
1997 - 19" x 19" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This was my first attempt at a Kites and Darts theme. This design is an attempt to fill as large an area as possible. The coloring emphasizes small symmetrical areas, as well as highlighting the non-symmetric connections between them. One can pick out larger symmetries, and is left imagining how these larger symmetries are connected.
Penrose Curves
1999 - 19" x 19" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This was my second attempt at a Kites and Darts theme. In this case I show the so called "blue" curve that can be drawn on top of the kites and darts design. The very simple blue and gold coloring suggests to me a flag or banner. The recursion can be seen in this design, but it takes a lot of concentration. It is easy to loose one thread while following it.
Colored Penrose Curves
2001 - 20" x 20" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This was my third attempt at a Kites and Darts theme. In this case I color in the "blue" curve that can be drawn on top of the kites and darts design. It is essentially the same design as Penrose Curves. The coloring scheme was chosen to emphasize the recursion.
The smaller patterns are grouped in several ways to form larger patterns. These larger patterns are grouped in the same ways to form yet larger and larger patterns. Each scale of grouping is surrounded by an outline made of a single continuous curvy line. This grouping continues on larger and larger scales without limit. Although symmetry can be found within the groupings at each scale, there is no overall large scale symmetry.
Meditation discovers many relationships among the smaller parts of the design.
Hortus
2004 - 20" x 20" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This was my fourth attempt at a Kites and Darts theme. In this case I colored in the areas bounded by the "blue" curve that can be drawn on top of the kites and darts design.
This design is essentially the same as my piece Colored Penrose Curves. The coloring scheme was chosen to emphasize the symmetries, and I was surprised at how much this in fact enhanced the design. This is by far the best of my Penrose designs. It will be hard to top.
For a detailed discussion of this project, see Anatomy of a project - Hortus.
Photographs
Making a needlepoint design from a photograph can be rewarding. It is not as easy as it seems. Photographs have a high resolution and have many thousands of colors. Needlepoint canvas is very low resolution. There are only a few hundred different yarn colors, and a practical project should be limited to at most twenty colors.
Man with the Golden Helmet
2002 - 17" x 21" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This project was an exercise in turning a picture into a needlepoint. I had been thinking for a long time about turning photo like images into needlepoints. I chose this famous Rembrandt image for my first attempt for two reasons: First, it had few colors in it. Second, I have loved this painting since I was a teen. To me it represents self-discipline.
The main effort was reducing the number of colors down to a manageable number. I ended up with six browns and three golds. This sort of design is very difficult to stitch up. There are few areas of solid color, and a great many small areas of similar colors next to each other. It is very easy to loose your place in the printed design chart.
As an exercise, this was a success because it looks very much like the poster I started with. As a wall hanging, it is too dark. One of the lessons learned is to be very selective about the original picture you start with. I should have picked a brighter version of this famous paintng. I hung this in a bright place, and it is one of my favorites to look at.
Dragonfly
2004 - 10.5" x 11.5" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
This is my second attempt at turning a picture into a needlepoint.
I admire dragonflys. They are very good at flying. Each of the four wings moves independently, and they can hover, evade birds, or fly 60 mph. They are also a very successful life-form, and have not changed much since before the time of the dinosaurs.
This project was my first use of some image processing programs I have been working on. As with the Man with the Golden Helmet, the main effort was reducing the number of colors down to a manageable number while retaining image quality. I ended up with ten colors. Two greens, four browns, two grays, red, and black.
St. George
ca. 2003 - 14" x 16" - 14 gauge canvas, Appleton yarns.
My mother, Patricia Mooney, introduced me to needlepoint many years ago.
Several years ago, she asked me to use my computer programs to make her a chart of a painting that hung in the lobby of her apartment complex. She inclosed a 3" x 5" Instamatic snapshot she had taken of it. I did the same sort of work on this photo as I had done for the Rembrandt piece, and sent her a chart.
This sort of design is the most difficult sort to stitch up, but she finished it in one and a half years.
Tomo
2013 - 14" x 17" - 12 gauge canvas, DMC yarns.
This is my third photo to needlepoint project. This is a picture of my daughter in law taken in August of 2009 on a trip to an Onsen near Kashima Japan.
As with all of these types of projects, the main effort was to reduce the many thousands of colors to only a few colors available in tapistry wool yarn. In this case I got it down to 15 colors. I used a new version of my image processing program converted to C++. This took four months of full time work to stitch.