Tracing the grain

For my Fish & Bird embroidery I chose my favourite patterned fabric to embroider on: Joel Dewberry's Wood grain. But instead of just using this fabric as background  for my embroidery I'm using the wood grain pattern as a lead to embroider my waves and sky/cloudy bits. I'm using different colours, including a variegated floss, to make the whole image more lively. I'm fill stitching the whole image but I have a hard time envisioning how it will look like when it's all finished. At the moment I'm fill stitching the whale. To not give him a 'furry' look I keep my back stitches small and within one colour range. Hope that will do the trick!