Last week we talked about shading a detailed realistic face, but far more common are simple faces without lots of detail.
These are much easier to stitch but there are some techniques you can use to make it look better. Use the ones that apply to the face on your canvas.
I find the skin assortments of colors from Rainbow Gallery and Access Commodities excellent for faces. If you are stitching minority skin tones, the Access Commodities skin boxes are outstanding. These products have a range of shades. If your skin has shadows or lines painted in a darker flesh color, do not use the next shade in line, skip a shade. Often shades next too each other are too close in value to be discerned when stitched.
If you have cheeks on a simple face they are usually round and painted pink. But stitching them as painted results in ‘clown cheeks’ that draw attention to themselves. Prevent this by using a blended thread of half cheek color and half skin color and stitching one or, for large faces two rounds of stitches around the cheeks to create a transition.
Lips are very pale on men and darker on women. They should always be different (brighter or darker) than the cheeks. Save bits of pink and red thread (think lipstick colors) for lips. You can make single stitch mouths stand out a bit by making a Cross Stitch over a single intersection.
Eyes can be a real challenge. Although many teachers recommend floss for eyes, I prefer metallic. The glint of metallic reflects nicely the highlights and tears in real eyes. There are many metallics that are in realistic eye colors, try to use these. Remember if you are stitching animals, their eyes are usually black. Use black metallic for this.
Most simple faces I see are painted in a sort of default flesh tone. This may not be what you want. Pick your hair color first, then the eye color. Finally adjust your skin thread choice to match these.
Apply these tips as needed to stitch delightful faces.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Leave a Reply