There is so much more to making a pattern than simply sketching or tracing an outline from a photo. The bottom line is that your pattern will determine the final look of your pet portrait so it is well worth the time to learn how to make a great pattern.
Learn how it’s done in Anne’s online course and from there, you will be ready to make a fabric collage portrait that you will cherish. When you’re finished, you will have a unique pattern, a foundation/placement guide for assembling your fabric collage, and a value guide to help you choose fabrics for the portrait.
The lessons consist of photos, clear written instructions, videos and downloadable pdf files.
Individual coaching is included. Just enter your question in the lesson’s comments box or email me and I’ll answer it as you work through the course.
After purchasing the course, it’s yours! Access it whenever you want for as long as you want. It doesn’t expire.
From photo to pattern to quilted portrait.
I signed up for Anne’s Pet Portrait course with the mindset that it would take me a few attempts before I’d be happy with the results – but wow was I ever pleased with the first attempt. My first pet portrait will also be my first quilt that I put into a quilt show. I’ve expanding the scope of my quilting because the techniques I learned from Anne.
Welcome to the second part of my Pet Portrait Collage Tutorial. In Part One we learned that a range of light to dark values allows us to see depth and dimension in our world. Similarly, the secret to making your collaged pet portrait look real is applying the same concept to your fabric choices. In other words, to make a fabric collage of a white cat or dog, you’ll need fabric values that include white, light to medium grey and black. And for a black one, you would probably still use white and black but the range of greys would be much darker. Regardless of your colour choices, a wide range of values is needed to create depth and dimension in any portrait. You can even include purple, blue, pink, or orange in your portrait, as long as you pay attention to value.
How to Read Value in Fabrics
Once you understand you can use a variety of fabric values to create a dimension and realism, here comes the next hurdle: putting this knowledge into practice. The urge will be to find some nice colours that you think will be suitable. After all, most of us are quite happy choosing fabric colours for our quilts, but not so comfortable reading or judging the relative values of fabric (how light or dark it is). In reality, you need to find fabrics with values that match the values in the photo. But let’s focus on finding the values of your fabrics for now.
Match the values of your fabrics to the values in your photo.
If you’re a quilter, you no doubt have light, medium and dark fabrics in your stash. You may even own some of the tools for identifying values in fabrics (check out your colour wheel for the value finder feature). The challenge we all face is seeing and reading the relative values in our fabrics. That is, how light or dark is a fabric compared to another one sitting next to it? The difference is obvious when comparing very dark to very light fabrics, but for all those fabrics in the ‘medium’ range, it can be more difficult to discern.
Quilter’s Fabric Value Finder
I have been working on this problem since I first learned the importance of value in quilting. Recently I developed a 7-step Quilter’s Fabric Value Finder for reading values in fabric. I use this to teach students how to select fabrics for collage. I can almost see the light bulbs going on across the room when their eyes light up after sorting fabrics of all colours using a tool like this.
The Quilters Fabric Value Finder is a 3 1/2″ x 24″ value scale with 7 squares ranging in value from white to black. It helps you quickly sort your fabrics in order of value, from lightest to darkest. Think of it as a ruler for value, where white = value 1 and black = value 7. The greys in between are values 2 to 6.
A value finder purchased from an art store will serve a similar purpose. Or, if you are computer savvy, you can draw a series of squares in Word and colour them in with gradations of grey. Then print it out and cut a hole in the center of each square.
Think of the Value Finder as a “ruler” for measuring relative value.
Here is a group of fabrics that I sorted using the Fabric Value Finder.
This is how it works:
Hold a fabric swatch over the hole in the white square and look for any contrast.
Move the swatch slowly along the Value Finder one square at a time, looking to see if it contrasts or blends in. You may find it helpful to squint.
You will notice that your swatch blends best with one of the squares but contrasts with all the others. This is its relative value.
Repeat with all of your fabric swatches.
Note that your fabric may not exactly match the values in the Value Finder, because only 7 values out of an infinite range of greys are represented. This is perfectly fine because value is relative. That is, value 4 is darker than values 1-3 but lighter than values 5-7. Just place your fabric swatch where it blends in the best. That’s all there is to it. Your fabrics are now sorted by value.
The hole in the centre is a great feature for finding the value of larger pieces of fabric. Just drape the Fabric Value Finder over the fabric and you’ll notice that one of the peekaboo views blends better with its surrounding square than the others. In this example, the green circle with the least contrast is the middle one, value 4. The circles on the right look comparatively lighter while those on the left look darker, making this green fabric’s relative value a 4.
In the example below, I’ve placed a fabric swatch of matching value over the centre hole in each square. Laying a small piece of fabric on a square of the Value Finder like this helps you see whether it blends or contrasts with the value surrounding it.
Although the swatch in the value 1 square (white) is not a perfect match, it is still lighter than the swatch in the value 2 position. This means its value is 1 relative to the others in this collection of fabrics.
The Quilter’s Fabric Value Finder works for any colour of fabric. This example uses brown fabrics. Notice that while the fabrics do not always perfectly match the values on the Value Finder square, they are sorted in a sequence of light to dark.
The last piece of the fabric collage puzzle is learning to read values in your photograph. In the next post, I’ll show you how to do this as you make a pattern from a photograph.
Are you ready to put this knowledge to use and make a stunning fabric collage Pet Portrait? This exercise is just one small part of the online Pet Portraits course, which you can learn more about here: Pet Portraits: Fabric Collage.
In the first two parts of this Pet Portrait Collage tutorial, you saw how values are essential to seeing depth and dimension and how to sort fabrics by value. The next step, making a pattern from a photo, can be a stumbling block for many. Follow along to see how it’s done.
Prepare Photos
To begin, have a good quality photo enlarged to the size of your finished portrait. You will also need a black & white copy, identical in size but reversed (flipped horizontally), for making a pattern.
I used to start by tracing from an 8 1/2″ x 11″ photo and enlarging the pattern afterwards. However, a full size photo provides you with far better information for selecting fabrics and makes the process more enjoyable.
There are several printing options. One option is to print your enlarged photo on your home printer (select ‘poster’ in the printer options) and tape the pages together. Similarly, you can use www.blockposters.com to convert it to a poster, print it and then tape the pages together. The other option is take your photo to a copy centre and have them print the enlargements for you on regular printer paper.
This photo of Gibson, an Airedale, has light coming from the right and shadowing on the left. You can see fine details in his black and gold colouring. But if you look past the actual colours and consider the relative values of those blacks and golds, you’ll see that this photo has a good range of values.
I have posterized and reversed this black & white photo of Gibson so you can see the full range of 5 values: black on his nose, eyes, inside the ears and on his shoulders and chest; dark, medium and light greys in his coat; white on the top and side of his head.
Zoom in to see if you can identify all five values.
Posterizing your photo reduces the colours or values to a set number and is usually used to simplify the photo. It is certainly not essential for making a pattern for collage, but can help if you’re struggling to see the shifts in value. There are apps, programs and websites for changing a colour photo to black & white and for posterizing, such as Gimp (dowload for free), Photoshop Elements ($$), Postershine (free app) and Pixlr Editor (free website).
Once you become tuned in to seeing and reading values, you’re ready to begin making your pattern. When it’s completed, you’ll have a paint-by-number pattern to use for making your portrait.
Set-up
Gather your two photos (a colour original and a black & white reversed copy), masking tape, a fine tipped black permanent marker, a colourless blender pen (available at art stores) and a sheet of mylar plastic (also available at art stores) large enough to just cover your portrait.
Place your two photos side by side, colour on the left and black & white on the right.
Place a sheet of clear mylar plastic over the colour photo, about 1/2″ from the right side. Tape the right edge of the mylar to the colour photo.
On the mylar plastic sheet, trace some registration lines by tracing around the eyeball, iris, pupil (if it’s visible) and the fleshy part of the nose. Use the colourless blender marker pen as an eraser, if needed.
Flip the mylar onto the black & white photo. Tape the left edge of the mylar to the colour photo.
Lift the mylar slightly so you can align the black & white photo with the eye and nose tracings.
Carefully flip the mylar back onto the colour photo. Apply tape along the left edge of the black & white photo to secure it to the colour photo.
You should now be able to flip the plastic mylar page freely from the original colour photo to the black & white photo without anything shifting. Adjust and re-tape if necessary.
Mylar tracing is over the Original Colour PhotoMylar tracing is over the B&W Pattern
Tracing the Pattern
Now that your mylar sheet is secure, you can begin making a pattern from your photo. You have a choice of tracing from the colour photo and/or the black & white photo. Whichever you choose, you can flip the mylar to the other side to check your work.
If you’re wondering where to begin tracing, here’s a good way to tackle it.
Look closely at your black & white photo, taking note of the different values from lightest to darkest.
Now look for areas that read as the lightest value (white/light grey) and trace completely around each area. Mark these as 1’s.
Start with the easiest shapes and gradually tackle the ones that look harder to define and lasso.
Now look for the next darkest value of grey, and trace around those areas. Mark them as 2’s.
Continue working through each value until you have traced and numbered all the areas that read as the darkest value (black).
Tips for Tracing
As you trace, think of each area as a puzzle piece that you are going to lasso. Your tracing line needs to completely encircle the piece so try to keep your pen down until it returns to the starting point. You will eventually cut each puzzle piece out of fabric so it’s important that you completely lasso each one.
As you trace, think of each area as a puzzle piece or a blob that you are going to lasso.
If you’re unsure of how to trace a particular area, flip the mylar to the other side to help you decide.
When the shape becomes more like a wandering amoeba, stretching right across the page, make it into two or three separate shapes to keep the size manageable. Ignore tiny blobs smaller than your baby fingernail. Remember, you can always erase unwanted lines with a colourless blender marker pen.
Once you’ve finished tracing, slip a piece of white paper under the mylar to check your paint-by-number masterpiece. It might look more like a ‘mess-terpiece’, but fear not as this is the scariest point in the process. Check your tracing carefully and close up any disconnected, dangling lines. Make sure all of the shapes are closed and have been assigned a value.
Tracing to Muslin
Pattern shapes are outlined on plastic and assigned a value.
Next, you’ll trace this pattern onto a piece of light muslin.
To ensure the correct orientation, flip the mylar plastic onto the original colour photo.
Slide a piece of white paper underneath the plastic mylar to reveal your pattern.
Drape the muslin over the mylar plastic, covering the entire pattern. Now, tape down the four corners and smooth the muslin so it is taught.
Use a light touch to trace your pattern onto the muslin, omitting the numbered values. If you’ll be using very light fabrics for your portrait, trace with a light coloured marker.
Transfer the muslin to a portable design wall.
Now stand back and admire your masterpiece. Notice how it looks just like your photo? Amazing, isn’t it? A little bit intimidating, maybe? Not to worry, you’ll be working on one puzzle piece at a time.
You’ve earned a break so be sure to have a good stretch and rest your eyes. When you come back, you’ll be ready to dive into your fabric stash.
If you’ve followed along, congratulations on making it this far! I hope you have a better handle on seeing and reading values in both fabrics and photos. With a little practice, you’ll be ready to get to work creating your own unique quilted pet portrait collage.
Send me a message if you have any burning questions and I’ll do my best to answer.
Are you ready to put this knowledge to use and make a stunning fabric collage Pet Portrait? This is just one small part of the comprehensive online course which you can learn more about here: Pet Portraits: From Picture to Pattern.
As an art quilter, I generally don’t make two of the same quilts on purpose. But, while I was auditioning the green background on Piper’s portrait, my enthusiasm got out of hand and I was having so much fun, I just had to complete it. But, it was a commission and I had not even asked the client what colour she wanted! With a copy of the templates in hand, I made a second portrait of Piper and fortunately, the black & white version also looks great on this saturated blue.
Below is the workup for Piper, showing that I had traced the line drawing onto a thin muslin background. The lines are almost all covered up, but hopefully you can see a few of them in the face area. Since the individual fabric shapes are all backed with Lite Steam-s-Seam II they are lightly sticky and I can simply fill in the spaces, one shape at a time.
Using a re-positionable fusible product such as Lite Steam-a Stam II allows you to view your work in the vertical plane as it progresses. No pins, no glue, no pieces slipping around! It’s truly a ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ approach and makes a world of difference.
Here’s what I learned from making Piper twice:
Always find out what your client wants before getting too carried away!
Photocopy your templates so you can make a new set if, needed.
Using a re-positionable fusible lets you work in a vertical plane and truly see your work as it develops.
There you have it: making a piece twice can really have unexpected advantages.
The latest dog portrait has finally graduated from the design wall to the dog house. Welcome, Gus … formerly known as Max!
Each portrait I make provides an opportunity to try something new and this time, I decided to make a strip pieced background. Orienting the strips on the diagonal seems to enhance the sense of depth and add extra punch to that big pink tongue. I also decided to use more colour in the eyes, nose, and mouth, again emphasizing these great features.
Gus waited a long time on the design wall as I spent almost a month touring by bike through France this summer. Now that I’m back and rested from towing my possessions behind me on my bicycle over 1400 km from the Loire Valley to Provence, I’m in the studio and making dog portraits again. All that pent up creativity is getting released. Ahhh… that feels good.
I have also been working on improving my brand and the first item on the improvement list is to change the domain name of my website to 2dognightdesign.com. More exciting changes will follow. Thanks for staying tuned to my journey as it evolves in the world of dog portraits.
Today was a great day because I finally delivered the quilted pet portrait of Tinkerbelle to her parents. Tinkerbelle was there and she was none the wiser of course, but Mom and Dad were thrilled with the quilt.
Without further a-do, here is the last instalment of this series explaining my technique for finishing a pet portrait.
Step 13
The final step is to finish the outside edges and add a hanging sleeve and a label. This is no time to gloss over the details and rush to the finish line because the quality of workmanship here can make or break the piece. The traditional finishing method is to square the quilt up and add a single or double fold binding to create a narrow outside border. I prefer a single internal border in my portraits so I finish the edges with a facing for a clean finish. The facing is simply a 2 1/2” wide strip of matching fabric (a separate strip for each edge) that’s stitched to the front of the quilt and then turned to the back and stitched down by hand. To save time, I prepared the hanging sleeve and attached its top edge to the upper facing strip before it was applied to the quilt. Once the facing was secured on the back, all I had to do was stitch the lower edge of the hanging sleeve to the back.
I always record my name and the date the quilt was finished on a quilt label which I print onto fabric. After fusing it to the back of the quilt I secure it with an invisible hand stitch. Then it’s time to photograph the portrait before transporting it to its new home.
If you’ve been following along with me, you’ll have seen that Belle’s portrait finally came together. The next step is to find a good background for her, something that will really make her personality shine. I started by auditioning fabrics from my stash. Auditioning is simply placing the fabric on the vertical design wall and laying the portrait on it, then standing back to view it. It’s really important to audition on a vertical surface so you’re addressing the piece face-on and can absorb the full effect. What I was looking for is simple: do I get an ‘ah-hah’ feeling to tell me it’s the right one or does it feel flat or just wrong? Of course there are no rights or wrongs and you just have to follow what your head and your heart tell you is best. Here are a three worthy candidates I selected.
:
And here are my thoughts on each one:
I really like the movement in the pinky orange batik with the grey maple leaves stamped all over it but I struggle with the fact that Belle’s face is bathed in light and nothing in this background supports that. Or does it? Perhaps it’s the warmth that seemed to oppose the coolness of the greys and blacks.
The blue background worked well for my previous portrait, Jackeroo, but it’s a flop in this case. It simply feels flat and motionless and there’s no light emanating from it.
The green batik has movement and depth because of the blue/green shading. The lighter areas almost look like sunlight shining through a dense leafy foliage. It also has a subtle leaf pattern on it and while it doesn’t look so great in this photo, it ended up being my favourite. Now it’s time to prepare it for quilting so I can stitch the portrait down.
For you quilters out there, what tricks or guidelines do you use to select fabrics that play well together? And how do you know when they’re playing together well?
Thanks for reading my blog. Next time, I’ll describe how I prepare the background and what I do with the portrait.
The quilted pet portrait of Tinkerbelle is coming together at last. I’ve been describing this technique of transforming a photo of your pet into a quilted pet portrait in the last couple of posts. Today’s post is all about bringing a lot of little bitty fabric pieces together.
After fussy cutting out 85 pieces from 9 different fabrics, I started placing and fusing them onto a base I had cut out of fusible non-woven stabilizer. To be honest, this was a real challenge. Here’s the deal: many pieces had edges that had to be tucked under AND edges that had to go over the adjacent shapes. There were basically a lot of interlocking pieces. Read on to find out how this all came together.
Step 9
So how did I bring all these pieces together? First, I spent time studying the original photo to observe depth of field — what parts are closer and which ones are further away? Then I did a dry run with all the major shapes to see how this interlocking would work. I made lots of mental notes and then I cleared the deck, making sure the keep the shapes together in numbered groups. I pinned the transparent master to my portable working surface, slipped the base underneath and one by one, removed the paper backing and placed the shapes in their final resting place.
Here’s the forehead region. All those little arrows marking the ‘unders’ and ‘overs’ really come into play here as they tell me which edges to place underneath the others. Some of those pieces are small! I use tweezers to move them into place.
As I positioned each piece, I used a light touch with the iron to tack it to the base and avoided touching the edges that had to remain free to allow the next shape to tuck underneath. Here’s how she looks under the transparency when all the shapes are in place.
At this point, I need to look at her with a critical eye to decide if I really achieved the right values in the right place. I can see there are a few subtle adjustments to make however the construction is completed. I’m off to the fabric store now to find a background that will really make this portrait pop. Next up will be a post all about colour and focal points.
If you’ve read this far, thanks for reading my blog!
In November I made a portrait of a curly-haired poodle named Nahanni. She’s a lovely dog with a beautiful calm temperament which made her fairly easy to photograph. Her eyes are two big pools of love that I managed to capture in the picture and the portrait. Today I had the pleasure of taking that portrait to Nahanni’s owners, as they fell in love with it and wanted to purchase it.
Nahanni seemed to understand the whole transaction as she stood in front of me and lifted her paw to shake hands. Well, maybe that’s stretching things a bit, but she did shake my hand a number of times…most likely wanting a cookie. Many thanks to Dave and Susan for being the first to buy one of my pet portraits.
The latest doggie pet portrait is complete and I’ve named it Jackeroo. Our Jack Russell, Tashi, charged at Jackeroo when she first saw him on the design wall. It was hilarious to see her barking at the portrait (with a ball in her mouth of course!) while dancing around on her hind legs. There and then it was clear that I’d captured the spirit of this cute canine.
Jack Russells are bouncy and energetic so I chose to quilt all the curly cues on the patterned background and then I inserted a thin internal border of a black and white aboriginal print to set him off.
Tashi still thinks there’s an intruder in her house.
Jackeroo was inspired by a photo taken by Paige Kerr (www.gobeyondtheleash.com).
