Transfer technique

[Kenny_Callicutt]

sorry if this is the wrong forum.

Just recently Ive gotten into working on gessoed masonite and made the annoying discovery that you cannot really draw on gessoed masonite whatsoever.. you can draw a line.. but you cant erase it. so its a little diffucult to work out your drawing.

So I thought .. ok.. just get a peice of paper the same size, work the drawing out on that, then charocoal the back of it and transfer it that way. I havent actually tried this yet im just assuming it works.

anyways the point of this post was I was hoping people would share how they go about transfering a drawing..

[figure2]

When I was back in art school we had a semester-long set-up painting on gessoed masonite. Our drawings were done on tracing paper and once approved, we applied graphite to the back and transferred the drawing to the gesso surface. You can buy specialized transfer paper but you can also buy powdered graphite at a hardware store which is sold as a dry lubricant. You may want to test applying the graphite to the back of a scrap piece of tracing paper with a cotton pad to see how it works.

Another tip: transfer the drawing with a red pen, or at least a different color than the drawing on the tracing paper. If the drawing is really involved, this will help you see what has already been transfered and what you still have left to do.

[Kenny_Callicutt]

sweet, this was exactly the type of response I was looking for, thanks man.

[Bowlin]

I use this... has worked pretty good.

http://www.dickblick.com/zz129/17/

[dbclemons]

Some warn that graphite has a tendency to strike through top coats of paint later on, so instead use charcoal. Keep your marks faint so it doesn't mix with your paint, or seal it with another thin layer of gesso. Could use fixative, but it might bead up on you.

BTW, I don't seem to have trouble erasing pencil off my gesso boards, but mine are pretty smooth.

-DBC