Acanthus starts to get a critical mass going

The acanthus (someone tell me why I keep calling it amaranth, I've had to correct that all over the place) stitching is getting to a very interesting point.  This is where I diverge from the original design and get into more complex ideas.  This is the course of today's work, which wasn't more than an hour or two, I'm a fairly fast worker on this.

As you see. the complexity is starting.  There are weird little areas where you seem to see faces, but they will vanish into the general stitching as this work proceeds.  

Each of the small areas is different, and they include openwork where I cut out the threads entirely,  pulled work, weaving and various other ideas.  My first ideas about the needleweaving on that leftmost open area didn't look good to me, so I tried various approaches before deciding to just cut the section out completely and stitch across the opening.

Click to see better.