Toothpick Painting - Qashqai Kilim Persian Rug, aka "The Monster"

I created a monster.

This all started in 2015 when a friend of mine gave me an old, gigantic 24"x36" canvas. It had been sitting in her shed for a long time, had a few stains, and even had a little mudbug nest clinging to the back of it.

This is basically what a mudbug, or mud dauber, nest looks like.

For the longest time, I had no idea what to do with it, so I used it as a test-canvas for color mixing and other experiments.

Then I discovered toothpick painting. I had already completed the tree and the sugar skull and was looking for a new surface on which to try out the dots.

The canvas stared longingly down at me from its place in front of my art desk.

I knew that if I did this, it would be the bane of my existence for months, if not longer. Toothpick painting is a very slow process - an 11"x14" painting takes at least 12 to 15 hours; doing it on a 2'x3' canvas would take ages.

But if you've read any of my DIY fail posts, you'll know that I'm a sucker for self-torture when it comes to projects.

I knew I wanted it to be a Persian rug. My father has his own business cleaning and repairing handmade rugs, so I've grown up around them my whole life. Plus, the painted dots are very similar to the individual knots that make up a handwoven rug, so it seemed the two already had a bonding similarity.

I'm also in love with the Kilim style of rug. They are more geometric than typical Persian rugs, and the flatweave style (as opposed to the poofy pile of other rugs) gives them a more tribal look.

My inspiration came from the bottom image, which I found to be gorgeous, but also relatively simple. It was made by a tribe called the Qashqai, which can trace its roots back thousands of years.

So after painting the background yellow and tracing out the basic exterior lines, I dove in.

It began on August 21, 2016,
and the last dot was painted on February 2, 2017.

Total time was approximately 135 hours, give or take a couple.

I could only paint for two to three hours at a time before my neck would start to ache or my eyes would go buggy. And I did my best to count the hours as I went. In the beginning, my dots were far too big for my liking, so as I went on they got smaller. And while counting all the dots was impossible, I did manage to count the red dots of the exterior border.

Ready?

Yep. For that entire line of border, the dot count came in at 28,300 - give or take 100.

After that was done, I was very happy to stop worrying about counting and just get back to painting.

So, without further ado, here are a few close up photos, followed by a slideshow of the process. Typically, after finishing a session I would take a photo of the progress, but of course I didn't plan on making a sequence out of it, so the photos are all at different angles and different colors. Sorry about that.

After finishing the Qashqai, I took a break for a couple of months before beginning my bonsai series. The third tree should be done in a few weeks.

Thank you for reading!
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There are also photos on my website, lenadamvar.com

Mud dauber photo
Kilim Rugs: Top, middle, bottom