Ophelia: First Post - Page 1

This is the first HAED that I ever spent any amount of time on.  And the first one I ever completed a page on.  I don't know what it is about this picture, but I just love it.  The picture is called Ophelia.  It's part of a Tragedy trilogy that the artist created also containing Juliet and Cleopatra.  The artist, Jonathon Earl Bowser, is one of the best artists I've seen on making clothing look... well, real.  It's not perfectly smooth against her body, it really looks like she's wearing that dress and cloak.  This is one of his earlier works, and it just might be my favorite.  When complete, this project is going to be 16" x 33 ¾", almost three feet tall!  It's going to be fun paying to get this framed.

So, as I mentioned, I've completed page one, and I'm sorry to say it's not all that exciting.  It's all background, just splotches of color, as you can see.  The picture was taken February 22, 2011

From the looks of things it's going to be a tad more purple than the original picture, but the colors are limited to what DMC offers, until they offer all the millions of colors our eyes can perceive, I guess we'll just have to get along with 454 colors.  Honestly, I can't always tell the difference between two colors I'm stitching, so 454 seems plenty to me.

I started page 2 shortly after taking this picture.  I'm probably about halfway through that page and it is much the same.  However, in the very bottom right hand corner you will be able to see the beginning of one of the flowers in her hair.  I know you can't wait.  Actually I can't wait.  I thought it would be great stitching so much background as it would be easy... big blocks of color, very little changing of threads.  However, I find myself getting bored and having to push myself to continue with the color.  I don't have a shot of where I'm at right now, I'll post that when I get back to it, actually looking at it right now is making me want to work on it tonight.  Who knows... maybe I will.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Ophelia
Original Artist: Jonathon Earl Bowser
Pattern by: Heaven and Earth Designs
Started Stitching: August 15, 2009
Fabric: 25ct. White Dublin Linen
Floss: DMC 2 over 1
Percentage: 2.32% complete
Pages: 1 of 54 complete
Stitches: 7840 out of 338,400 complete