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Then you've finished carefully drawing out a composition for a new painting. You dearest it, information technology's ready and it's time to put it on the sheet.  Mine is 16 10 32 inches… large enough to get at the detail of the drawing, but small enough to exist fully visible while you lot're working. Yous've got to keep those proportions direct.  You lot've also stretched and primed a lovely 60 × 30 inch linen sheet. It's bare and ready to receive your creative genius! But how do you get that drawing onto that lovely canvass? For something this size, my method is to employ a charcoal transfer.

Your first footstep is to take your cartoon downwards to your local copy shop (thank you Kinkos!) and accident information technology upwardly to the size of your prospective canvas. Using a little ratio math, that works out to around 187.5% for me, but  I similar to go only a pilus on the modest side to make sure the entire epitome fits on the canvass. It volition have merely a bit of extra space effectually the edges, which the frame will most likely eventually cover anyway…  so permit's say 186%. I also similar to lighten the image a little so I can see my traced lines later on in the process. One time you're through the mayhem of working with your shop to go the drawing blown up, head on back to the studio. Next step is to cut out the epitome and, on the dorsum, mark out any large areas where there is nothing to transfer. I hold the paper upwardly to a window… gratis lite-box! Yay! Then lay the drawing out face down on a piece of work surface. For this large of a drawing, my work surface is the floor – super glamorous I know. (I'm still pining for a backyard studio/shed dream.) I also have a big slice of masonite that I can move around under the drawing as I piece of work.

Back of a drawing transfer processI've purchased a couple of soft charcoal sticks (I'll probably go through both) and I've got a roll of paper towels handy. The bones idea hither is to comprehend the entire back of the copied drawing with charcoal anywhere that there are lines you want to transfer to the canvas. WARNING: It's ridiculously messy, but I usually manage to keep the bulk of the charcoal on the paper. I wouldn't recommend letting your toddler walk through during this stage.

Laying down the charcoal transfer process

Next I employ a paper towel in a circular motion to evenly work the charcoal into the paper… making it as dark equally possible. Once more, super messy.

Laying down the charcoal transfer process2

I advisedly shake off the excess charcoal dust onto a spare sheet of paper and throw it out earlier I get it everywhere.  This is a adept fourth dimension for some hand-washing as well.

Laying down the charcoal transfer process3

Next, I advisedly position the charcoal-coated drawing over the canvass and tape information technology in place.

Lay the drawing on the canvas transfer process

At present for the tiresome bit. Using a maul stick to keep my hand off of the drawing, I employ a ball betoken pen to meticulously trace over every line on the drawing that I want to have on the canvas. I use a fair amount of pressure, and after a couple of hours (I think this pace took me around two and a half hours) my hand feels pretty awesome.Drawing on the panel transfer process

Later on I pry the pen out of my hand, I so remove all the record except along the top edge and peek under the drawing to make certain I got everything. If it looks adept, I remove the drawing and throw it out. Now I have a light recreation in charcoal of my cartoon on the canvas. Pretty slick, eh!! Works for many different sizes, merely particularly for larger format projects.

Drawing is transferred transfer process

The transfer is extremely fragile at this point and can be easily wiped off. Before I can paint over it, I need to 'fix' it. The preferred, archival way to get about fixing the drawing is to carefully trace over information technology with either thinned oil color or with Republic of india ink. Conveniently, Republic of india ink is available in fine-tipped pen course… and so I like to apply that. Yes, this is the other deadening bit…

India ink tracing transfer process

Finally the drawing is fully recreated in Republic of india ink on my lovely 60 x 30 canvas, and is prepare for paint.

Finished transfer transfer process

Incidentally, this exact aforementioned process works really well with burnt umber oil paint instead of charcoal. That transfer medium has the added benefit of non requiring the final step of fixing the transfer, and it yields a very delicate, fine, and quite lovely transfer onto the sail. It's ane downside is that the extremely thin layer of paint on the paper dries fairly quickly requiring the tracing to be done quickly. For that reason, I shy away from oil transfers for large and/or circuitous drawings. Happy transferring!