So, you have the perfect photograph of your dog or cat that captures their personality to a tee and you’ve decided you want to make your first quilted pet portrait collage. That’s great, but now what? Fortunately, there are many resources on the internet and good books on the subject of fabric collage to get you started. Even so, there are two steps that often stump the beginner. The first is how to create a pattern from a photograph and the second is how to select the right fabrics for the portrait. In this 3 part Pet Portrait Collage Tutorial, I’ll explain the importance of value in making a realistic portrait, how to read value in your fabrics and finally, how to make a pattern from your photograph.

Walk Before you Run

When you think of making a pet portrait, your first impulse will be to collect fabrics that match the colours of your pet. My advice is to resist this impulse. I know this is hard to do because we quilters love our fabric. But before tackling your first pet portrait project, you’ll need to know about one thing: value.

Value is a colour’s relative lightness or darkness.

Shadows on White

We see a white surface or object as white because all of the light is reflected back at us; conversely black is seen as black because the light is completely absorbed. It’s why we wear white in summer to reflect the sun’s rays and and black in winter to absorb the sun’s warmth and stay warm. 

OK, enough about science! Here’s where it gets interesting. When we look closely at a white dog or a black dog on a sunny day, there is a good chance there will be shadows somewhere on the white dog’s coat and reflections on the black dog’s coat. In a photograph, these shadows and reflections read as grey. And it so happens that (…insert drumroll) all greys are values of the colour white. They are the reason we see the dog in 3D, aside from contrast with the background. Let’s look at two examples of my canine friends to see how this plays out. First up is my Jack Russell, Tashi.

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Check out the shadows in this photo of Tashi. Besides a strip of bright white on her forehead, do you see several shades of grey? She is a white dog with bits of brown on her ears but the white, grey and black are what allow us to see her strong neck and adorable facial features.

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In this posterized photo, you can clearly see several shades of grey. Notice the dark grey patch on her throat and the lighter greys on her neck and face. Do you also see white and black areas? How about the ball with its five shades of grey? If you compare the two photos now, you’ll see the greys more clearly in the upper photo.

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Here’s what Tashi looks like when I remove the shadows from her face and neck and make her all white. If I removed her eyes and nose as well, you would see a flat ghost outline without any depth or dimension.

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The grey shades you see in Tashi’s colour photo are five values of white. Similarly, the ball looks perfectly round because of its five values of orange. Luckily, our brains automatically sort out values so we can see our surroundings in 3D. All the while, colour grabs our attention and causes our heads to turn. This is why we say:

Colour gets all the credit while value does all the work.

Reflections on Black

I’ve used Tashi to demonstrate how values do the work of creating dimension because I often hear people say it would be very difficult to do a portrait of a white animal. I hear the same thing about a black dog or cat. The difference when working with a photo of a black animal is that the values come from reflections on the animal’s coat. This is why it’s best to take a photo of a dark animal on a bright day if you’re planning to make its portrait.

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Here is my friend, Tank. He is pure black but look closely at all those reflections on his face and head. Your brain will trick you to think they are black, but do you see their light to medium grey colours? How about the light grey on his nose?

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This is a posterized version of Tank’s photo. Notice the greys on his muzzle and top of his head. There are even a couple of dots of white on his head, nose and tongue. If you zoom in, you will see six values.

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Here, I have replaced all the greys on his head with black. This looks quite hilarious, but it shows you that if you interpret a black dog as just black, you won’t capture its features.

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I hope these examples have helped you see how important value is to our perception of depth. If you focus on seeing what is actually in your photograph and not what you think you see, you will be one giant step closer to creating a realistic pet portrait collage.

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Are you ready to put this knowledge about value to use and make a stunning fabric collage Pet Portrait? This is one small part of the comprehensive online course which you can learn about here: Pet Portraits: From Picture to Pattern.