Cayce Zavaglia’s Embroidered Portraits (Picture Gallery)

Artist Cayce Zavaglia creates truly amazing embroidered portraits. Her impossibly layered artworks look more like paintings than something made with a needle and a thread.

Zavaglia explains the process behind her painstaking embroideries:

“Initially, working with an established range of wool colors proved frustrating. Unlike painting, I was unable to mix the colors by hand. Progressively, I created a system of sewing the threads in a sequence that would ultimately give the allusion of a certain color or tone.”

“The direction in which the threads were sewn had to mimic the way lines are layered in a drawing to give the allusion of depth, volume, and form. Over time the stitches have become tighter and more complex but ultimately more evocative of flesh, hair, and cloth.”