Tracing Paper Tutorial – How To Transfer Images
A lot of people think tracing is wholly bad, but this couldn’t be more far from the truth. Many artists through time have used tracing techniques to improve the work time on their art. Still, in a large way tracing can be, because often times many people trace others work, which limits our progress and overall learning curve; but there are always instances where tracing can be a positive tool too. I disagree with tracing to learn how other people draw. I never did that, I copied artwork but never traced it. Very short phase of my art life. Copying helps you to learn hand eye coordination and teaches you to draw from what you can see through observation as well as a few other things but we are speaking on tracing.
Tracing in the instance below is called taking an impression, or rubbing and transferring. It is a technique that can save one time and a headache where it could take one a long time to draw something congruently. One way to implement tracing in your work for the benefit of your artwork is to take rubbings or retrace in areas where congruency is needed, such as a frame for your work, jewelry designs, or other symmetrical works. Another example is to take a drawing/sketch and rub the backside with graphite if you desire to transfer the image to a canvas for painting. Some people use a mirror but this is the easier by far with less headache and neck strain.
Artist Pro Tip 1: You don’t have to throw away the sheet when done and you can reuse it. If you wish to reuse the tracing paper again you can cut off the area that is no longer desired and store the rest of the paper for use later.
Artist Pro Tip 2: You don’t have to spend money on Artist’s Tracing paper which can be spendy (the amount of sheets per cost.) Instead an alternative you can buy is tissue paper from the dollar or thrift store, which is by far cheaper than buying an artist pad of tracing paper.
Step One: First you will trace your own art in the desired area that you wish to copy or transfer. It doesn’t have to be dark, and it can be very light, which is fine. In this image here you can see it looks very dark. This is because you will be retracing your trace after step two.
Step Two: Cover one side of the tracing paper sheet with a graphite rubbing to the size of the area you will be rubbing or tracing. Take your pencil and rub on a flat angle with the lead for maximized area consumption. You may go over it a couple time if you desire, but once is all that is necessary.
Step three: Place the sheet of tracing paper with the graphite rubbing down on the drawing, then start retracing your traced image to begin transferring. Once you are done, you may remove the tracing paper and begin tracing the rubbing that has been left behind.
Step Four: Remove the Tracing paper. This is what it should look like. It will be a bit dirty, but that is okay, you can always erase what you don’t want left behind.
Step 5: Now you just trace over your transfer markings with pencil, ink, or whatever you are using and wallah, it saves you the headache of checking yourself before you wreck your art every five seconds.
And that’s all. You can do this to canvas as well, depending on what you are transferring to you may need to vary your pressure to get the markings to show.
Let me know how this works for you if you decide to try it, and remember to have fun. I’ll see you later!
Transfer Papers
Drawing is one of the fundamentals of creating artworks but just because you are not too great at drawing doesn’t mean that you cannot create marvellous canvases or artworks. We live in the 21st century, not in the dark ages where everything had to be hand carved from scratch. Today there are lots of handy art tools and methods available to help an artist create wonderful works much faster and to much greater satisfaction.
If you have a picture that you would like to transfer to a canvas or product but don’t have the skill or time it takes to properly draw these images, then we highly recommend you give drawing transfer paper a try.
These paper sheets allow you to copy the outlines of pictures or photographs onto canvases, paper, sheets or other art bases. Once your outline is sketched with the tracing paper, you can get to work at creating your unique work of art in any art medium. Trace paper is perfectly suitable for creating oil, acrylic, watercolour and mixed media artwork.
Tracing paper is incredibly handy for saving time on your artwork and is a very handy tool for student artists who might be busy perfecting their art medium technique. With these tracing papers, you can have your base sketch done in minutes so you can get to work on art medium practice much quicker. These papers are also fantastic for artists that want to create works without any mistakes.
How to Use Transfer Sketch Paper
Tracing paper is very easy to use and can be used to transfer images to a huge variety of places such as canvases, wood planks, shirts and more. There are also different types of tracing paper pads available on the market. Here is a quick breakdown of the top types and how to use them;
Inkjet printer tracing paper – To use this paper all you need to do is to design or look for a design on your computer. The image you choose should be an outline. Print the image in reverse or mirror format onto the paper. Now you can heat press your image face down onto the canvas or material. A hot iron is a perfect tool for heat transferring these images.
Trace pad paper – These paper pads are usually a see-through paper that allows you to trace an image with great ease. The best way to trace is by working on a lightbox and a 4B pencil. Once the image is transferred to the transparent paper, you can transfer it to your canvas by scratching the back of the paper without moving the paper.
Get Tracing Paper from Art Shed Online
At Art Shed Online we sell a wide range of art products such as canvases, Copic markers, paints, paint sets, pigments, brushes, accessories, easels, storage boxes, drawing pads, sketch pencils, colouring pencils, portfolios, modelling tools and so much more.
We also sell different types of tracing paper to help you make the best of your artwork in less time. Our tracing paper types include papers like the following;
- Inkjet printer transfer art paper that allows you to print directly onto the sheets before transferring to your canvas.
- Transfer rolls for those extra-large art projects
- Tracing paper pads in different sizes. These pads are perfect for tracing all sorts of pictures onto overlay or transparent sheets
- Graphite tracing pads
- White paper transfer pads
- Scratch art tracing pads
You can buy any of these products directly from our online store, and we will get them delivered to your doorstep anywhere in Australia.
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