Embroidering faces

If I'm accurately understanding your assessment, you want to outline a face only.

That's easy enough to do: either tiny chain or tiny stem stitch will give you a smooth edge.

If you want to fill in the face and then add a couple of features (eye/s, nose, mouth as straight stitches) you can either use long/short technique (needlepainting without shading) or Rumanian couching. If the face is very tiny, you can simply satin stitch it, and then add details.

Dianne

Thank you, Dianne. I will probably try all of these. It would help, of course, if the faces looked like people and not like caricatures. But probably my skill levels need to be higher to accomplish that.

Regards, Shanti.

Shanti . . . straight lines to designate nose, mouth, and eye (with a dot for the eyeball) doesn't necessarily mean a caricature. Some really lovely art is done with little else for features. It's positioning them correctly (proportionately) that is the trick.

Dianne

Of course Dianne's advice is wonderful but I can't resist adding my $0.02

If the cloth you're using already has prints of the faces, you could ignore the outline. Instead see if you can make the facial features stand out with a few stitches.

Whatever you decide, use one strand of floss for a fine line.

And a good two cents it is! :~)

I've seen the finest whitework of faces. Unbelievable workmanship. If only I had the eyes.

Dianne

And don`t forget what they teach you in art classes - if you think of the face as an egg - the eyes are only half-way up - NOT near the top! Remember that and you`re halfway there!

Pat P

In the exhibition i just hung , and opened , "SEAM +TEFER" There are several works with faces , one is done only with White

+several shades of Gray and Black " xst not with regular threads . One is made with Straight stiches , one is crocheted , and two are done in a mixture of drawing and sewing ,

mirjam

Thank you, everyone, for all your suggestions. I had a longish chat today with the lady who's co-ordinating the project, and she seems to think that it's best to avoid any facial features. If I do have to put some features in, I shall be sure to incorporate some of your suggestions here.

I'll put up some pictures or paste in a link when the project is finished.

Regards, Shanti.

smart lady -- I'd rather have a piece with an artsy face with no features than one with simplistic ugly ones

I don't know what size these faces are, but to me that would be rather ghostly. Of course, maybe that's the affect you want.

Dianne

Different strokes for different folks ;-)

One of the first pieces I did when I started stitching again was several fairies from a Dover book. I had great fun doing everything except the faces. The faces turned out ghastly!!! Maybe I didn't choose good colors for outline and features coupled with using more than one strand of floss or maybe the faces were just plain ugly from the git go. I never hung the finished piece and just recently decided to use the frame for something else. I actually threw the stitching away. Do I hear a collective gasp?

I bought Sophisticated Lady I wanted to practise working with edmar threads but hated the face as drawn. Thanks to Christine Hause's tip about Biz removing printed lines, I've got a faceless lady that doesn't look quite as evil as she could've.

You always do such interesting pieces! Dianne

sx?uTÑnå4}ÏWL_Z!õæ?@Ñ?ú@ÄòN2?Ýëx²¶sCøzÎ8Ù?Oql?3g?ºý8K~0!ð¶"Z¢d®?··C~xsvo?­éÑõ=G?R?ráD½Dê>ïöâ/?N_}u@ø#0IOÙ2õ.¦L?ã8O@éh±°LÙÄ̾.·?Ì`\ Å$J|åhü
´7.:%e$C?+?\j?YÓÑ?ݨ?S?5dþ§å)B/0A«>lý­¤u?òø?i°&e¿ÞÜÜÐïfmx«$Üej­HbD:jÅKÜÔ:@????=:êÁw?ÈÔÊ

When I do picture to pattern for my nudes, the thing that decides how big the picture has to be, is the face. When one looks at different sizes of pictures, in stitches, then when the face starts losing too much detail as one goes to progressively smaller sizes, that is the time to stop considering smaller sizes. Jim.

The face is the make-it-or-break-it in my decisions. So many designers have lovely everything else, but just can't do faces. Often it's because they're "overdone" - too dark, too detailed. Usually the less detail, the better, IMHO. That's probably why I don't stitch people much.

Sue

I second your observation, Sue. I find that a lot of Needlework (mostly in XS) designers seem to be missing some figure drawing/portrait basics about faces, heads, necks, shoulders & how they join up. As Pat pointed out - that little "eyes are at about the half-way" placement often gets missed. What troubles me is the awkward position of heads on necks - not having the slope of the neck, but rather having the head sitting like an egg on an egg cup - which I notice on some otherwise quite pretty Mirabilia or Nora Corbett pieces. And speaking of faceless - the little Pixies or Faeries of recent years - either faceless or with truly minimal indication. I think the minimal better than nothing, but....OTOH - there is a reason I tend to more figure/architectural/landscape drawing as opposed to portraiture - definitely a limitation I try to recognize and work with.

Ellice