And on to the next thing

And the next thing is ................................. blackwork. As I said, I know nothing about this.

I have chosen as my image a Leonardo sketch of a grumpy old man, although I bet he was handsome when he was young!

So far all I have done is put the linen onto the frame and marked up key features by stitching through a tissue paper copy of the image in a very pale thread. 

I have had a bit of a practice at the stitches. The actual stitches are simple, but they build up into quite complex patterns and need to be carefully counted.

I'm pretty vague about how the shading works! Wish me luck.