Pedro Pascal/Joel Miller Embroidery
This is my third embroidered portrait which features the actor Pedro Pascal in his role as Joel Miller from HBO's series "The Last Of Us." My regular embroidery tools such as needle, thread, and fabric were used along with fabric paint used to paint his clothes.
This project was designed digitally on March 11th and 12th, 2023, and stitched between March 13th, 2023 - June 13th, 2023.
As with all of my projects, I drew out my design on my tablet beforehand. I commonly use a hatching technique to shade certain areas, darker colors are used to create more value. I use this technique because it is much easier to stitch lines instead of filling in the entire area with the thread. This is a way for me to limit the amount of thread used as well as minimize the time required for stitching.
I stitch colors from lightest to darkest/least important to most important. This ensures the darker, more important colors, will be placed on top of the lighter colors.
The orange lines printed onto the stabilizer act as an outline for the movement of his hair, showing me which direction his hair should be pointing based on each section.
Unlike my other two portraits, I only used one color to fill in the hair. This allowed me to use a negative space approach and place stitches in the darker areas to create shadows while leaving the white fabric uncovered in areas for the highlights.
After all of the stitching was completed, I removed the water-soluble stabilizer by submerging it in water. The outline of his clothes was then transferred back onto the fabric using charcoal transfer paper which I painted on top of using fabric paint. After all of the paint was dry, I went back over the lines with a running black stitch to add more definition to his clothes.
