YouTube/tekla kuchukhidze

The craft of cross-stitching has gained many followers globally that even men are now in it as a hobby, past-time or even as a source of livelihood. Faces of known people or personalities such as Jesus Christ or Mona Lisa are favourite subject, or family members.

A 21-year-old Spanish artist, David Cata, similarly uses needle and thread to portray his loved ones, but his stitching habit uses a different canvass, not cloth as most cross-stitchers use, but the palm of his hand.

Included in his palm portraits - which require Mr Cata to have a high threshold for pain to do one - is girlfriend Tamara.

Each portrait takes about four hours to finish because after stitching the face, he carefully pierces the top layer of his skin and then draws the thread through to create a stitch.

He repeats this process using different coloured threads to create detailed images of people who mean a lot to him, eventually leaving partial outlines of the portraits as permanent scars.

Among the faces on his palm are family members, friends, girlfriends and teachers.