How to Paint Your Pet's Portrait Tutorial

Last night I was inspired to paint Mister G's portrait.  

To paint your pet's portrait, you will need:

A copy of your favorite photo of your pet

Sharp scissors-- the tinier the better

Tape

Paper to paint on

Tracing Paper

Pencil

Paint

Paint Brushes

First, cut your pet's silhouette from your photo.

Then put a tiny rolled up piece of tape on his face and stick him on your paper.  

Choose your background color and use your pet's silhouette as a stencil.

Use the tip of your scissors or a toothpick to lift up the edge of your stencil and remove from the paper.

I needed a little help spacing out Mister G's eyes, nose, and mouth so I used tracing paper.  

Put a sheet of tracing paper over the photo of your pet.  Mark where your pet's eyes, nose, mouth, and other important features are.  

Line up the tracing of your pet on top of the painted silhouette.  Gently trace over the tracing to make soft marks on your paper.  Remove the tracing paper and sketch the features of your pet using the soft marks as a guide.  

Now you are ready to paint your pet!  Be patient and have fun!  

Crafting with Pet Fur: Yay or Nay?

The concept of crafting with pet hair begs the question-- why am I so grossed out by crafting with pet fur, yet I will literally rub skeins of yarn across my face in the yarn store "oohing" and "aahhhing" about how luxuriously soft it is?

Have you heard about fur felting or crafting with pet hair?  

Here's the basic idea:

You brush or trim your animal's hair and collect it.  If your animal doesn't like to be brushed or groomed, you pick their hair off of the carpet or floor and save it.  After you have amassed a sufficient quantity of pet hair you can felt it.  If you collect enough fur you could make a sweater for yourself!  

What do you think?  Does crafting with pet fur get you excited or make you want to throw up?  

You know what they say... Don't knock it til you try it.  So I did.  

Mister G dislikes being brushed, bathed, and groomed.  Plus, the idea of looking for Mister G's fur under side tables and picking it off the carpet to collect and craft with is just gross.  (Besides, those specimens are all dusty and are embarrassing!  Everyone has a few dust bunnies-- but who wants to save them??)

I lured G into the bathroom, gave him a trim, collected his fur, and wet felted it like this tutorial suggests.

Exactly as I suspected... I am not into it.  My biggest complaint (besides husband John giving me a very, very weird look) is that it doesn't feel good in your hands.  Texture plays a big role in my love for fiber arts.  Yarn and wool roving feel so rich in my hands.  G's usually very soft fur felt grainy and gritty while wet.  Several times while felting I had tiny dog hairs on my lips and even inside my mouth.  I conducted my felting business at the kitchen sink and stray fur found its way into my pots and pans and down the drain (despite my best attempts to keep it contained in the drain strainer).  In short, it was gross.      

Most of the buzz I have read online is about crafting with cat hair.  I happen to be allergic to cats-- so I will take everyone at their word that cat crafting is an enjoyable process.  

At the end of the day, from my toils came this truly beautiful felted garland that I decorated Mister G's crate with.  (Don't worry, I took it down so he won't choke on it).  Although the process was unpleasant, it's kind of cool to have a craft that once was part of my sweet crafting companion.  

Interested in learning more about crafting with your pet's coat?  

Crafting with Cat Hair  by Kaori Tsutaya, translated by Amy Hirschman is a book that explains, well, crafting with cat hair.  You can preview 26 pages of the book on Amazon.  Whether you love the idea of cat crafting or are repulsed by it-- you probably won't want to miss taking a peek inside this book.  

If you don't want to buy the book and are still curious like a cat about crafting with fur-- this tutorial for felted pet hair beads explains fur felting pretty well!  

I want to know what you think about all of this!  Leave a comment, post on Mister G's Facebook page, or tweet me @MisterGandMe.

Thank you to Quirk Books for permission to use their image.