Diamond Art Reference List

I recently tried diamond art painting and I'm obsessed! It is calming to place one tiny piece after another and watch a full image emerge. Below, I've included a short history, common definitions, and some websites to reference!

History:

Diamond painting is a relatively new craft, less than 30 years old, differing from cross-stitch, which dates back to 600 CE Egypt, or silk embroidery, which dates back to 200 BCE China. The craft was likely invented in 2010 by a Chinese laser-cutting company that made laser-cut plastic pieces to create a mosaic image, see patent CN103358798A. Diamond painting uses small plastic "drills" placed on an adhesive canvas to form images, similar to mosaic paint-by-numbers and cross-stitch patterns.

The popularity of diamond art has grown significantly since 2010. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people sought relaxing, creative indoor activities, and social media advertisements have been successful in showing how satisfying it is to make the diamond art (cite). Despite its growing global appeal, diamond painting production remains centered in the area of origin - East China.

Definitions:

• Diamond Art: any art piece created by gluing drills to form a design

• Diamond Art Painting: placing drills on a substrate, usually has a paint-by-number format

  
  

• Drill: 2.5mm square or 2.8mm round piece of plastic used in diamond art

  • Square drills fit together more snugly, not allowing the substrate to peak through so create a different image effect than round drills

  • Round drills may be easier for beginners because they're more forgiving to be out of alignment

  • 3D Diamond Art: drills that have 9 to 13 facets

  • 5D Diamond Art: drills that have more than 13 facets, so are more like plastic rhinestones

• Freestyle: when you create a diamond art painting without a paint-by-number base

• Full Drill: when the art piece is fully covered in drills

• Partial Drill: when the art piece is only partially covered in drills

• Bedazzling: decorating something with shiny embellishments

  • The most common substrate is an adhesive heavy canvas.

  • Wooden bookmarks, glass Christmas ornaments, plastic vases, cloth tapestries, and greeting cards are also common things to paint with diamond drills. When it's 5D drills that are similar to rhinestones, it can feel like bedazzling.

• Diamond Pen: single tip pen to pick up and place drills

• Multi-Placers: pens that allow you to pick up and place multiple drills at once

• Drill Tray: a small grooved trap, usually with a spout at one end, that helps you shake and line up the drills right-side-up, making them easier to pick up with the pen. Some come with lids.

• Wax: generally in flat form, this is to stick to the pen edge to pick up up and place drills.

  • Some artists prefer putty. You don't want to use glue that will leave a mark or dry too quickly.

    
    

• Lightbox: used to highlight background of a painting for more precise placement

• Ruler: used for more precise placement. Some are specific for diamond art.

• Tweezer: used for more precise placement

• Brayer: used to press drills firmly into place after completion. Alternatives include a wine bottle, rolling bin, or cylindrical water bottle.

• Top Sealant: If you want to preserve the finished piece, using something like clear mod-podge can give a nice finish and prevent hair from sticking to the art.

• Bottom Adhesive: Most kits will come with an adhesive already. If you are doing freestyle, you can use any form of glue, but I have found double-sided sticky sheets are the best.

  
  

• DMC: Dollfus-Mieg & Compagnie is a famous French needlecraft company that categorizes the colors of their thread by a number scheme. Other crafts have adopted this color numbering system (which has been around since 1876!).

  • Not all diamond art kits are DMC coded, so I've included a DMC converter below.

  • You can even buy drill containers with DMC labels!

• Resolution: Like cross-stitch patterns or fuse bead art, the images created by diamond art will have a "pixel" or "grid" quality, so the best images are made with that grid format in mind. In the same way a digital image of fewer pixels has a "low resolution" a diamond art painting that looks fuzzy has a low resolution.

• Rendered: If an image has been converted into a diamond art painting, it is considered to have been rendered. If the resolution is too low, the rendering was poorly done.

  • The larger your painting, the easier it is for an image to be rendered at a high resolution.

  • When purchasing a kit, always make sure there is a rendered version for your viewing. If not, they're probably hiding the poor rendering.

ChatGPT (photo above) is less helpful than StitchFiddle in creating patterns.

Website References:

1. Where to buy kits:

   1. Michael's has "Make Market" which are great for beginners. I started out on the Mini Butterflies.

   2. PaintGem has a lot of different kits of different sizes that I have enjoyed.

   3. Diamond Art Club is the company most beloved by Reddit and have contracts with Disney and Warner Brothers for licensed art of beloved characters.

   4. I was very happy with this lizard pattern I purchased on Etsy to use up leftover drills. As stated above, make sure to view a rendered version and check your sizing before purchasing a pattern.

   5. Home Craftology sells their own kits and does custom kits, they come highly recommended.

      
      

2. How to make your own pattern:

   1. I have found StitchFiddle.com to be the best site for converting a picture into a diamond art pattern. They allow you to specify drill size and shape, diamond count, project dimensions, color symbols, and DMC colors. They have a paid and free version, so not all the options for control are in both versions, but I found the free version to still be really great.

   2. StitchFiddle.com also have a freeform form where you can draw or edit a pattern.

   3. You can also pay people on Etsy to create a pattern for you or chart your own image using a grid process.

      
      

3. How to find DMC code:

   1. J Stool Box is a great tool for trying to get RGB to DMC code.

      1. They also have an image color picker to pick image file colors if you don't know the RGB color code.

   2. Lord Libidian has a spreadsheet that one can download and edit of DMC codes.

      
      

4. How to buy drills by shade or DMC code:

   1. DiamondDrillsUSA.com have a very intuitive category by shade and type.

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What other sites or tools have you used to create diamond art?