String Art-Part Four- Curves and Wings

After months of work, I have finished my gigantic string art project. 

The last stage of the Hylian Crest design was the wings and triforce.

The triforce is created by making parabola curves using the sides of the triangle. Follow the pattern below for each corner, on each of the three triangles.

For the wings, all you have to do is start at the top inside corner and make rays. Inside corner to top outer corner, down one nail, back to the inside corner. Then to the next outside nail, down one, and back. Just keep following that pattern until you get to the inside bottom of the wings.

The final piece is to finish the curved part of the wings. You can use a similar technique to make any curve or even a full circle. You start the string at one end of the curve, then move to the middle nail, over one, then to the second nail of the curve. It's easier to understand if see it then read it, so here is a diagram of the pattern. Basically, you start at one side of the curve and eventually end back at the center of the curve.

For this design, I actually continued a bit after the center to finish the straight side of the wing shape. If you wanted to make a complete circle you follow the same basic pattern. Pick a point to start, move the nail directly opposite and the continue from there.

So without further ado, here is shot of the full, completed design.

This ended up being a much larger project than I expected. Not in size, obviously because I chose that when I started, but in time and materials. I ended up using twice as many nails as I expected and making runs to the store for more thread, both the blue and gold. All together I used 5 skeins of the blue embroidery floss, between a third to a half spool of the silver, and around two and a half spools of the gold thread.

For the most part, everything went according to plan. I had a few issues with loose nails. I know I mentioned in a previous post that I had a much easier time with some nails than others. I don't know if using a different type of board for the backing would have been easier or if I just need more practice with hammering. When I was working on the wings, a couple of the corner nails came loose and caused me to have to redo that section.

To fix it, I put a small amount of glue on the nail, then hammered them back into place. After the glue dried they seemed much more stable.

For now, it is propped up on a bookshelf in our dining room but the plan has always been to hang it behind the couch in the living room. The question now it, what's the best way to hang it, to ensure it doesn't fall and hit our friends in the head. We are considering simply screwing it straight to the wall. I can't think of any type of hooks that seem strong enough to hold the weight of the board.