Fixing Luna's Hair

Luna Unstitched

Today's Blog posting starts off with a photograph of my Ladies of the Night canvas untouched because I want you to see how her hair was painted before you see how I stitched it.

I'd planned to stitch her cloak lining next but realized I had better figure out if the lining stitch played nice with her hair and I got carried away last night.    This is her head.  I'm not finished yet but I needed to get both sides of her hair stitched before I did the bangs.  Look at the unstitched gray area in this photo and then at the full photo at the top of this article.  I've skipped the gray shading in this close up head shot.

Here you see black and gray areas stitched except for that gray spot at her neck.  I'm using two threads--a black silk/wool blend and a silk/metallic blend.  The color is way off on this photograph so you can see as much of the texture change in her hair as possible.  In person it is quite visible, even under night lights, but the camera doesn't pick up the sheen of silk or the sparkle of metallics well.

I don't always necessarily follow the painted areas when I stitch a painted canvas.  I wanted to use a stitch that didn't follow the gentle curves of the gray waves so I had to adjust where the highlighted areas (i.e., the gray) fell so my stitches would fit.

Here is the bottom of the canvas showing how the hair and the cloak lining stitches work together.  Another unstitched gray area is at the top of this photo just under her hand.

I'll finish the hair tonight before I work further on the cloak lining stitches.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com