Monday, November 30, 2009


Transferring a drawing to canvas is done by placing the drawing face to the glass of a window (in the daytime!). Then you go over the lines with charcoal, taking care to make the coverage a bit wider than the actual line in the drawing. For complex areas (here it is the hair) just cover it all with charcoal.

Now place the drawing face up on the canvas. Adjust it to fit as you want it placed. Then with a blunt pencil (a sharp one will poke holes through the paper), go over all the lines of your drawing. Do tape it in place so you can lift it occasionally to see if you got it all transferred.












Here you can see the tape holding the drawing in place, and also the blunt-tipped pencil.


















In this last photo you see the drawing which is about to be lifted off. Note that the placement of the drawing over top of the canvas is slightly tipped. This is because the student wanted to place it that way. Doing drawing transfers this way gives you that flexibility of placement.

Even though there is no photograph here of the drawing on the canvas, understand that after you have it done, you will need to touch it up with any corrections or adjustments you want to make. Also you may need to make some of the lines darker so they don't disappear under the first thin layer of paint. DO SPRAY IT before you begin painting!
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