This has been a great project so far. I used dense stitches over most of the hand, since the inspiration print was mostly dark areas. Since I am using a thin silk thread, I really packed in the stitches. To differentiate between the areas, I changed the direction of the stitches and use fairly open areas as contrast.

The base stitches are finished, but now I need to go in with a top stitch to outline the piece and other needed raised spots. This will separate the fingers and other parts of the hand.