Crewel Cartoons

September 2, 2010 5:13 PM

Please suggest images I could convert into crewel which are cartoon modern in style, but not depictions of characters.

I have The New Crewel and plenty of can-do spirit, and I want to do a crewel project for my home. A pillow, perhaps.

I love the look of "Cartoon Modern," and have some Eyvind Earle art at home, so while I thought of imitating his style, I don't think that would serve my crafting goals best.

I'd like to get ideas for cityscapes, landscapes, space scenes, machinery, or other background-level depictions that I can "trace and color" myself with crewel yarn and creative stitching. I'm not much good at starting from a blank slate. They should be colorful and not incredibly complex. The image linked above is a good level of complexity, but I don't really want an office with some dudes as decor.

It seems like the web is full of hip artists whose work would be suitable for a little tribute like this.

Any ideas, guys?

posted by Ambrosia Voyeur to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

What about Exploding Dog? (I don't like the new ones, but the ones from 2003-2005 are really good)
posted by amethysts at 5:42 PM on September 2, 2010

I'm pretty much obsessed with vintage crewel pictures, I have them all over the house. There are a ton of vintage crewel kits on Ebay. Some are real hokey, but some are pretty neat but I don't know if this kind of thing is up your alley or not. My favorites are the ones with birds or owls. The kits are pretty inexpensive and you could use the patterns to transfer to any fabric surface you wanted.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 5:46 PM on September 2, 2010

What about Roadrunner and Coyote? Even the 'landscapes' are obvious that they're from the cartoon. Here's one example, but I'm sure there are better ones.
posted by kch at 6:41 PM on September 2, 2010

How about some Japanese woodblock prints? This gallery has many beautiful landscapes, perhaps one of them could be a jumping off point.
posted by Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld at 6:41 PM on September 2, 2010

George Molnar was an Australian cartoonist and architecture critic who worked in a variation on cartoon modern, but very sparse and subtle, and very wry. He was most famous for his black and white line cartoon art which often featured buildings.

Take this colourful play on this particularly ugly building, for instance, or this comment on parking lots, or this on the harbour, or this on human scale in buildings.

Start with Picture Australia.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:37 PM on September 2, 2010

How about Tim Biskup?
posted by biddeford at 11:32 PM on September 2, 2010

Also, I think kch is thinking of Maurice Noble. His paintings are full of grerat modern-style elements.
posted by biddeford at 11:36 PM on September 2, 2010

kch, that blog is chock-full of great content. Like this, this, this, this and this. But all roads seem to lead back to Eyvind... Thanks!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:38 PM on September 2, 2010

I asked a sort-of-related question last year, and although I didn't mention it at the time, I really wanted ideas for embroidery. :)
posted by dogmom at 5:32 AM on September 3, 2010