Qinni
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A quick guide on transfering sketch to watercolour (etc) paper
🕑 Added 2019-07-09 18:10:03 +0000 UTCWas gonna post this when I finished the sketch but this is taking so ridiculously long...With watercolour sketches I'm always so careful so that I don't make an un-erasable mistake that'll ruin the paper.
So here's a quick guide on how I transfer stuff onto either watercolour or even my "clean" sketchbook:
1 - First, print out your sketch, and print it out so it's not that dark (so lower the opacity or something).
(Even if you already have it as a sheet of paper, I'd suggest printing it out because it'll make transferring much easier, and also you wouldn't accidentally ruin your sketch (unless you're totally fine with that, and have another coloured pencil or pen to trace over your sketch))
2. Take a 4B+ pencil, and go over the back of the sketch you printed, like in the picture below
(or attach a graphite sheet to the back of your sketch, like one of these https://amzn.to/2XAq5fJ . I've never tried it myself, but my friend used to use those a lot for transferring her sketches for her layouts;. try at your own risk tho, i dunno how well these erase)
3. Go over the sketches on your printed sketch with a (preferably very thin) pencil. This is actually more of graphite guide to where everything is lying, but the lines transferred will be a little thick and messy with graphite, which I will need to clean up. This is why I usually try to print a lighter version of my sketches, because it's easier to see my pencil lines that are going over.
You can kinda see how the graphite caught on the texture of the watercolour paper. I think it's worse on this paper cause of, well, the cold-press texture. Hell of a mess to clean up lemme just say lol.
4. Clean up - You can see how the transfer isn't crisp, so I need to go over everything again while cleaning up at the same time because of the messy graphite transfer. Loose graphite is especially annoying on watercolour because it can make the painting "dirty" and generally unappealing if it detaches and mixes into the paint.
Here's what I've done so far, slowly and painstackingly haha. It's quite tedious, but because I'm using a watercolour block that's sealed on 4 sides, I cannot use a light box. Similarly, when I'm transferring my sketches into my really clean sketchbook, I also can't really use a light box because light boxes and well bound sketchbooks don't mix.
(If you have a loose sheet of paper, just use a light box or light pad. much easier. xD)
So this is my solution. It's slow and painful and maybe I'll actually try using the graphite transfer sheet someday to see if that can ease up on the messy graphite shedding everywhere xD. though, normally on less textured paper, it's much less of a headache. I also use a piece of plastic under my drawing palm to minimize smudging. I tape the plastic down from time to time so the plastic isn't also smudging. I wish the human skin didn't have oil at all LOL.
Hope this was interesting enough, sorry I ramble a lot xD;;
Comments
Ariel H
So, this is super late, but I use Saral wax free transfer paper for my transfers both onto paper and fabric and it works really well. It's not very messy at all. In case anyone wanted to try it, I imagine it's similar to the graphite transfer paper. https://www.dickblick.com/products/saral-wax-free-transfer-paper/
Qinni H
I'm using the thinnest and hardest pencil to transfer xD;;~ a 0.3mm 2H pencil. maybe i should try putting a harder graphite layer onto the other page though...maybe that'll help?
Rachael Kent
have you tried using a harder pencil? then you don't have to press as hard and maybe you get cleaner transfer?
