Mosaic of your pet coloring project – a tutorial

My dog, Dexter (@dexterlabradoodle on Instagram) is the cutest dog on this planet in my eyes. I always wanted to do a portrait of him. Although I am artistic, I am not good at drawing animals. Hence I cheated. It is actually easier than you think. I know that there are apps out there that take a picture and apply various artistic alterations to create cool effects but I want it to be my art work and not the computer’s. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, I created a mosaic of him and color him pink!

You can do it too. Here’s the cheat:

1. Print a grey scale of a favorite picture of your pet – I pick one with some good variation of highlights. You can’t do much if it’s a big patch of solid color.
2. Trace the outline and the important features and any patch of light variations  – you can use tracing paper or I tape the picture with the blank paper on a bright window. If you have a light box for tracing, I am jealous!
3. Draw mosaic patterns inside of the areas you mark in step 2 – I just draw long narrow rectangular shapes mostly to resemble his furs. You can draw whatever pattern you like.
4. Color the patterns – I use Tombow dual brush pens but any color pens or pencils will work just fine. If you need a tutorial on how to blend with Tombow brush pen, I will be doing a blog on that soon. Stay tune! (hint: subscribe)

Here’s what it looks like before I color mine and the original photo shot:

Zentangle example

I did a zentangle of Dexter when he was a tiny pup using this tracing technique which looks pretty interesting too.

Hope you give it a try, it is a lot of fun and you will be so proud of the result!

Happy coloring!