Oil Paint Cross Stitch Patterns is another home-grown term here. We call them like we see them and there are many patterns that seem to fit just this description so that is what we call them. To better understand the term, it would help if you have had any experience with oil paints or at least, some experience looking at them. Many oil paints look downright funky when you look at them close up. When they are viewed from a distance however, they become the incredible works of art that people pay hundreds, thousands and even millions of dollars for.

            Now I do not foresee the day when people are paying millions of dollars for what we know as cross stitch patterns today, there are some very expensive murals and other similar artworks from the middle ages making the rounds for a very pretty penny. Still, that is not the point of this article and I will never get back on track if I venture down that road. The point is that many cross stitch patterns do not look great when you view them from close range. So why would anybody want something that did not look good when it was staring you straight in the face? Why is a Dali or a Picasso painting worth so much money when you have to admit, they do look kind of weird from close up?

            One of my favorite cross stitch wall hangings that I have in my personal collection is just such a pattern. Unfortunately, it is not from a photo that I have the copyrights for so I cannot sell it as a pattern and not being certain who the artist was, it is unlikely that it will ever appear on this site. Still, hung in the corner with a little bit of indirect lighting on it, it remains a great conversational piece and a cross stitch hanging that I am very proud of. It is certainly not something that I could hang in the foyer but it looks great over a fireplace or on a distant dining room wall.

            So what makes a cross stitch pattern an oil paint cross stitch pattern? Among the key components is a large number of colors with very few contrasts in the photographic base. This will often cause the many different features of the pattern to “run together” in the finished cross stitch products. For example, if you are doing a still life cross stitch pattern. The differentiation in colors between the leaves or the fruits or other similar objects will often be very subtle and hard to distinguish from close up.

            That does not mean that your cross stitch pattern is not going to make a nice wall hanging, only that you need to take a little more care and think a little more about where and how you want to hang it, display it and light it. Cross stitch remains art work and any time you are creating your own work of art, the only person that you need to make happy is you. Whether you want high contrast photographic based cross stitch or more artistic and lower contrast cross stitch patterns, we hope that you will find some type of work of cross stitch art that makes you happy.