Angel progress: hitting the ground, stitching

Continuing to work on the background for the angel, I moved to the bottom section where the "scene" in my mind calls for some tall grass.  After several attempts on doodle canvas, I realized that a pattern stitch wouldn't work here--too uniform and artificial-looking.

So I stitched an underlayment of ground in basketweave with DMC floss #433.  Four plies of floss were used here, as I didn't want the profile of this area too high.  The coverage is a little skimpy in spots but that doesn't concern me, as I'll be stitching over it later when I add the grass.

A photo of a "sea of brown," as DH called it, may be a little boring, but sometimes needlepoint is a step-by-step process!  I've also temporarily "clipped" the lion's claws by stitching over the bottom, but the black that still shows will guide me in their placement when I stitch them, too, later on.