Robert Forman is a yarn/string painting artist that began his journey back during high school in 1969. Before the yarn painting, Forman was already highly skilled with drawing and then discovered he could combine his drawing skills with his mother’s embroidery threads to make paintings that utilized these threads. This technique gave birth to his specialization in making yarn paintings. Forman continued to develop his yarn painting technique well into college at The Cooper Union. Foreman graduated from The Cooper Union with a BFA in Painting for his string paintings.

Forman’s painting professor and mentor, Jack Whitten, brought Forman to Mexico where he learned that the Wixárika people, or Hurichols, use yarn painting as a traditional art form. This allowed Forman to develop relationships with other yarn painters and learn from them how they go about with their yarn paintings.

On Foreman’s website, he describes his process on how he goes about creating his paintings.

First, he creates full-scale drawings, traces them, and then transfers them over to a clayboard with carbon paper. Next, he uses Elmer’s Glue to glue yarn of various weights, colors, and materials (cotton, silk, linen, and rayon) to the clayboard. After all the yarn has covered the drawing on the clayboard, Foreman seals the finished painting with fabric glue and then frames it using a frame he built himself in his wood shop.

Foreman mentioned in an interview that his most important tool when making his paintings is a small screwdriver that he uses to press the yarn strands and move around the glue. “This screwdriver, a pair of thread snips and a small Elmer’s glue container are my indispensable tools.”