Silk shaded beetle.

I like a challenge, I especially like to challenge myself ! So I did, with an amazing photograph that I found on Pinterest. Usually I prefer to design my own embroideries but I just wanted to do a photo realistic embroidery.
         I loved this beetle mainly because of the colour and I decided to do it justice by embroidering it the size of my palm. So quite big, especially in this technique. Long and short stitch in stranded cottons. The challenge for me was to get the shine on the body of the beetle to give it a three dimensional effect without padding it.
          I added a little specimen tag with my name and date in an aged look paper. I think I quite like this one!!
 

Long and short embroidered blue beetle. Stitched with stranded cottons on a silk dupion background. Total height of embroidery 15cms. 48 colours of anchor and DMC thread used.

Close up of body embroidery. I added the tiny dots of colour at the end.

I am a messy worker as this picture shows !! I never line my threads up in a row. All 48 colours in a lovely big bundle.