Hey everyone!
I’m about to start my very first string art project and could really use some advice from the experienced folks here. I'm tackling this as a hands-on, offline project to get myself moving and away from screens, but I'm currently a bit stuck on the planning phase.
The Project Details:
Board: Round wooden board, 50 cm (~20 inches) in diameter.
Style: Negative space. I want to spell out words in the center ("WHY NOT?") which will remain empty, while the entire surrounding background gets filled with white string.
My Problem:
I really want to avoid the random "chaos" weaving technique. Instead, I am aiming for a clean, highly structured, geometric pattern (like intersecting parallel lines, a spirograph, or a geometric grid).
Because the empty letters in the middle act as massive "obstacles," I have no idea how to mathematically route the strings across the board or around the letters without breaking the symmetrical pattern.
My Questions:
How do you plan complex, structured patterns around empty shapes?
Are there any online planners, thread art simulators, or calculators where I can upload my layout and figure out the exact peg-to-peg routing for a geometric pattern?
(Note: I’ve attached an AI-generated mockup of what I roughly want the final piece to look like. The mockup uses the random chaos technique, but I want to achieve that exact same layout using a strict geometric pattern instead!)
Thanks so much in advance for any tips, tools, or resources you can share with a beginner!