This photo shows the beard and hair underway, and also gives you an idea of what I've added to the firebird to give him more personality (or at least a louder voice).
I'm stitching the hair and beard with a mix of threads and a mixture of split and stem stitch. As you can see, I try to indicate the movement of the flowing beard or the direction the hair grows with stem stitch, then fill in with split stitches that go between (or on top of) the stem stitched outlines. The threads I am using alternate between two plies of my light grey Splendor and a length of silver Sulky Metallic (#142); and one ply of the light grey Splendor, the Sulky Metallic and one ply of white Anchor cotton floss. I will do the flowing ends of the beard in a mix including 2 plies of grey and the mustache, which I want to come forward, with a mix that has a ply of white, one of grey and the metallic. I am always using three threads and one of them is always the metallic, but sometimes I use 2 pies of grey and sometimes I use 1 ply of grey and 1 of white. This provides highlights where I want them.
Because I used light grey for the background, dark grey for the floor, and a lot of silver trim on the wizard's clothes, I thought his beard would look odd if it were white so I went for a grey head of hair and beard on this piece. White can be a tricky color since it ranges from snow white to ivory to cream. I think it important to choose the right hair and beard color for any Santa piece, especially since Santa figures often have fur trim that is white. I don't want a Santa (or wizard) whose beard looks odd compared to the rest of the piece.
Tonight I hope to finish the hair and beard and do a bit more with the background. As a treat for myself, I'm also going to work on the jewel at the top of the staff. Study yesterday's blog entry to see how Joan treated her staff jewel. I'm going to steal some of her ideas.
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
