Transferring pencil from tracing paper to an acrylic ground?

[juliamaria]

My apologies if this has been posted before, I did my best to search...but I am very very new here!

Can you transfer pencil from tracing paper to a canvas?


What I'm using/looking to use:

9b pencil, 2b pencil on tracing paper
acrylic "ground" (gel medium, matte medium?)
acrylic paint on canvas


What I'm trying to achieve:

Just an imprint. I am probably going to paint over it, so it doesn't have to be the most clear print--but having a clear print would save time, which is what I need--with a show in a week! However, I am able to work through a loose transfer experience. haha


How I would do it, uneducated:
I was thinking of applying a rather thin coat of matte medium to my prepared canvas, wait for it to get tacky, not dry and not wet. Then i would lay my tracing paper pencil drawing down, burnishing the back softly... letting it sit for a moment, and pulling it back while the medium is still damp...hopefully producing a transfer.
I've already started the drawing backwards---so that it would work as a print and mirror itself out right. Also, the tracing paper has been rubber-cemented to mat board, since it is quite large and made up of multiple sheets of tracing paper ....
Paint over the imprint.
(Although, if there is a way to transfer the pencil and then seal it, that might be an interesting way to take this.)

Thank you so much.
I am in a dire art-producing time--please respond as soon as you can!

[Skriblinmatt]

If you just want to get your basic form/out line down there's a few ways.

You could use a soft pencil, build it up pretty thick and tape it to the canvas with the graphite side against the painting and rub it, which will give you a very light reversed image. You could flip the tracing paper over and trace it again in the back, then use the new tracing to rub on (eliminating the mirror effect).

You could poke little holes along the outline (there's a tool to help with that, it looks like a spur with a handle) and use a cloth bag full of powdered chalk to "pat" the lines, which will leave marks that wipe off really easily (too easily).

I usually use a projector. You can pick one up pretty cheap at any good art supply or hobby store. But the good ones are a little spendy ($299). I like this cause it also "blows up" the image. My paintings are usually much bigger then the original drawing.

But I believe the BEST thing to do is to redraw it right on the canvas (I like vine charcoal better then graphite cause it doesn't seem to effect the paint as much). I find it always comes out better because I usually see ways to improve it. By the time you start putting paint on it you'll lose your pencil marks so fast they won't be much help anyway.

Hope this helps. If there are other methods I'd really like to know as well.

[dierat]

There's also graphite paper that you can buy which has a coat of graphite on one side. You would just tape the graphite paper to the canvas (with graphite side facing the canvas obviously), tape your tracing paper on top, and redraw the image on your tracing paper with a hard drawing tool (like a pencil or a pen) to transfer the graphite to the canvas.

Printmakers use something similar that they make themselves using red iron oxide (which is kinda like rust). You put a little of the red iron oxide powder on a large sheet of paper, get a paper towel that's wet with rubbing alcohol, and smear the powder around the page to make a fairly even coat. You use it just like graphite paper.

If you want to just draw the image directly onto your canvas, you can use the grid system to draw is faster and more accurately. Just draw a grid over your original image (can be a thumbnail) and draw a corredsponding grid onto your canvas. (Make sure the dimensions of your grids match up. Like if the thumbnail is 4x6", your canvas could be 18x24". If the dimensions aren't the same, you'll end up with a skewed image transfered onto the canvas).

Personally I would just use the home-made graphite transfer method, which Skriblinmatt described (adding graphite to the back of your drawing yourself and redrawing the image on top to transfer the graphite to the canvas. Considering your drawing is on tracing paper, I would tape the tracing paper to a new piece of paper and apply the graphite to the back of that new page. Otherwise it might be hard to see your own lines.)

[juliamaria]

Like I said, I don't have much time. This is a developed 36 by 48 drawing. That is mounted to mat board.

I discovered damp gel medium works just fine.

Thank you every one!

[Jason Ross]

Scribble soft lead on the back of the tracing paper then tape the scribbled side down on the canvas. Then redraw over the lines on the tracing paper and the image will transfer to the canvas.

[jhgoforth]

depending on what you plan on painting with, graphite residue can be funky with oils. I always used any paper (sketch paper, tracing paper, etc) and just coated the back with charcoal rubbed on evenly as possibly (usually vine charcoal). But to be honest, i rarely transfer sketches to canvas and merely just redo the drawing (and use this repeating as an editing phase to improve the weak spots of the sketch if i want...i did the same thing in writing papers for history/english classes...i'd handwrite the paper, then type on a computer, and use that retyping as an editing phase, so a similiar process is in my mind in sketch>resketch to canvas>paint for me)

[talos72]

Here is a link that shows how you can actually transfer many images to many media using acrylic gels:

http://www.utrechtart.com/community/index.cfm?commentID=163