I love it! I have a Husky I would love to try this technique on.

Wow!!!!

Wow, I am very impressed with both of the dog portraits here! I would love to try this technique. Having read through the blog I get the general concept but suspect the real trick would be drawing the outlines for the "paint-by-number" ...

Thanks so much for posting!

Very cool!

Aye, very nice and I am in favor of a tutorial.

AYE!!!

Fantastic job. I love it.

Oh my. That is great. I could never attempt that.

OH Boy that is super

As with any tracing, one starts with the big picture - then starts to fill in the details...

If one is recreating an image from a coloring book, as I've seen suggested numerous times for creating patterns, one can follow the basic lines in on the page, and then decide where to highlight.

Working from a photo, you have to figure out your own lines. If you look at Dash's left ear, you can see where it is darkly mottled at the tip and there is a much lighter patch along the left side - so as I traced that, it was easy to decide on those color patches.

His white chest and feet present a different challenge. One could simply have a very large expanse of white, or one could try to bring out the highlights. Faced with a color printer that had run out of color (see exposure at left of picture, it is a bit pink), I printed several versions of the black & white photo using different contrast settings (playing around in Photoshop Elements), so that I'd have an idea of where he was more white than other areas. And considering he had just been bathed following an emergency vet visit the night before that picture was taken, his feet glisten. Some of the shine will be done with thread later, but some was done by varying the fabric chosen.

The transparency is used both the create the templates for the pattern pieces and also to place the pieces (might be clearer in the second shot).

I am taking the request for a formal tutorial seriously and considering how best to do it without taking from the teacher of this workshop. I do love teaching and sharing.

Cheers, K