Diamond painting: Crafting trend 'calms the mind' for Long Islanders
Laura Glass with one of her many diamond paintings at home in West Hills. Credit: Barry Sloan
Instead of hitting the bars for her 21st birthday, Marielle Jankowski hit the beads.
With lockdown preventing her from celebrating with a rite-of-passage night on the town with friends, Jankowski sat at a desk in her University of New Haven dorm room and tackled a new craft. It was a diamond painting kit her parents mailed as a gift from back home in Bellport. The kit included a 12-by-16-inch canvas with an image of a black Labrador and 25,000 tiny holes Jankowski would each fill with a bead according to a color chart.
Marielle Jankowski, of Bellport, works on a diamond painting of Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" with her French bulldog, Java. Credit: Maryann Jankowski
A few weeks later, Jankowski gave the shiny, vibrant dog portrait to her grandma, who had fallen ill. She has since recovered, and Jankowski, now 24 and living at home again on Long Island, has embraced diamond painting as her favorite "little hobby."
The pursuit is the modern update to recreational activities of decades past such as paint by numbers and cross-stitch. Using special pens or tweezers, diamond painting aficionados apply beads to a canvas with wax or glue or onto a pre-applied adhesive surface.
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Kits can range from a few dollars to more than $100, according to a recent check online. In the process, many find that creating colorful, gleaming pieces of art resembling mosaics often becomes a go-to way to slow down and relax. It helps that kits, available in a variety of sizes and patterns for all skill levels, offer often cheerful, sometimes uplifting themes.
A pastime some might find frustrating for its repetitiveness and need for dexterous precision couldn’t come at a better time for Jankowski, who has since earned her bachelor’s degree and works as a forensic science coordinator who intakes abused animals for the ASPCA. Jankowki says she sometimes finds her work "mentally challenging."
"Being able to step away from that helps to clear my mind and not have to see such horrible things," says Jankowski, who is currently working on a 20-by-16-inch replica of Vincent van Gogh’s "The Starry Night."
Laura Glass works on a diamond painting at her home in West Hills. Credit: Barry Sloan
Like others trapped indoors during the pandemic, Laura Glass, 54, a West Hills speech pathologist, took up diamond painting to pass time. She says she has experienced anxiety for years and that spending a couple of hours a day on the amusement helps. Set up on a desk by a window overlooking the landscape, Glass listens to audiobooks while she’s doing it. "I love it," says Glass, who has done hundreds of diamond paintings on canvases as well as objects such as night-lights and purses.
A diamond painting by Laura Glass, of West Hills. Glass places beads on a canvas using a special pen. Credit: Barry Sloan
Glass admits she’s spent thousands of dollars on the distraction. "It’s completely mindless," she says. "The pattern is already there, and you end up with a beautiful piece of art."
"Some people go to the gym," she adds. "Some eat. I use it as medicine for me."
Accountant Donna Gellineau-Matone, an Amityville resident of nearly 45 years, is doing a diamond painting as a team-building exercise at her Amityville office to help get her staff — and herself — through the busy tax season.
Donna Gellineau-Matone does diamond painting as a team-building exercise at her CPA office in Amityville. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
In fits and starts now through mid-April, Gellineau-Matone, who owns DM Tax Solutions LLC, will join the others in placing 60,000 drills, as the shiny resin beads are known, into 20-by-30-inch preprinted canvas that will eventually take shape as an image of the Eiffel Tower.
"Literally, I can walk out of a meeting, do 30 minutes of diamond painting and calm my mind," she says.
Ricki Rice-Felsen, 74, a retired teacher from Commack, says she stopped knitting, needlepoint and other crafts because they aggravate carpal tunnel in her hands. She became obsessed with diamond painting.
Ricki Rice-Felsen has 33 diamond art pieces on the first floor of her Commack home. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
There are 33 framed pieces on the walls of her first floor. Eight more are displayed upstairs. Another 10 hang inside her second home in Florida.
"My family says, Don’t you think you have enough stuff up?" she says with a chuckle.
TRY IT YOURSELF
Let’s Craft in Westbury will hold a diamond painting workshop at 7 p.m. March 25. Participants will work on a kit to guided instruction. All skill levels are welcome. Prices are to be determined. To register, go to letscraft.org or call 516-206-2509.
