Apple Tree fire screen - starting to stitch

With the design painted onto the organza, I can start to stitch over it, starting with the apples.

As you probably guessed from the paint, these are to be a nice bright red, and I'm going to be using three shades of Madeira stranded cotton, 0211, 0214 and 0305:

I used the darkest shade, 0211, to outline the apple shapes in stem stitch:

It's been a long time since I've used that and it isn't very good, but as it'll be overstitched later I'll leave it as it is and regard it as practice.  If it was going to be left on show, though, it would definitely have to come out and be done again properly.

To give a bit of shape to the apples, I added a highlight to each of them in the two lighter shades:

These have a central spot in the lightest, 0305, then a ring around it in one strand of 0305 and one in 0214, then another ring around that in one strand of 0214 and one of 0211, the bright red, to shade into the main colour.

I'm deliberately trying to use larger stitches than the tiny ones I usually use, to give it a freer feel, though it's a struggle!  My natural inclination is always to tiny detail.  I'll keep on with (for me) big stitches and see how it works.  Filling in the rest of the apples next.