Alexis 2017
I finished my embroidery of Joan Collins AKA Alexia Carrington Colby last night! I'm not gonna lie, this piece took me aaaaaages! It turned out to be very detailed and I had many breaks in between days of hard stitching. However, I have to say I love it and I'm pleased with how the Dame turned out!
Here's how I made this piece from start to end...
Firstly I drew out Joan's beautiful face onto canvas and painted in the skin tone and hair. I also put in some colour around the eyes as the base of her fabulous purple smokey eye make up.
Then I began to stitch in the details...
After appliqueing on the red fabric for Joan's dress I soon realised I needed to give her a fresh background as I'd unwittingly tried out my paint colours far too close to her face on the original canvas (see photos above). To fix this I cut out around Joan and ironed her to new canvas using bondaweb.
Then I began stitching into the hair... oh god, the hair! it went on and on...
I felt that some of the drama of the face had been lost as I stitched, so I gave Joan a little touch up and defined and darkened her makeup. Got to make sure those cheek bones are sharp enough to cut!
And then she was done. Here's a closer look at the details of her face so you can see some of the different stitches I used for different textures like jewellery, skin and hair. This was a really satisfying piece to work on, although I have definitely learned a few things not to do for next time. I'll be starting a new iconic look in embroidery soon, I haven't quite decided who but in the mean time I'll be thinking of framing options for Alexis/Joan...something fabulous and decadent I think...
