When looking for inspiration from indigenous cultures for style/technique wise I chose to go with the inspiration of aborigines and their wall art, to me this is reminiscent of using watercolours. Below I have used in particular bright primary/secondary colours to create these self-portrait experiments/tests, to me these colours are like the raw pigments indigenous cultures use to create their cultures unique craftsmanship and  body-art.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/53/27/11532741f0a7be7a5b864ec2d6f137d7.jpg

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/377/andrea-del-sarto-study-of-figures-behind-a-balustrade-recto-study-of-figures-behind-a-balustrade-verso-italian-about-1522/

Now looking at Italy and in particular the renaissance period there I wanted to look at the sketches produced in the time. This was a revolutionary period for growth within the art-world, and in particular drawing the natural-form. Artists dedicated time to studying the body and the inner and outer shapes of the figure, I want to represent this through my own continuous line drawing, but with stitch instead of the traditional pencil. To me this pays homage to traditional uses of fabric and thread when creating Renaissance tapestries. https://www.worldwidetapestries.com/category/italian-tapestries/  Below is a video of my process in trying my hand at stitch portraiture.

The next step is to move onto Greek influences then to look at how I want to draw the face in conjunction to my mask references.