Luisa’s Scrapbooking IdeasCapture Family Memories With Fun Scrapbooking Ideas

With a few painting techniques, similar to those used by many pet portrait artists, detail is an important part of the completed picture. As such, it is important to produce preliminary drawings, but what’s the easiest way to transfer the finished drawing to the canvas? Historically, artists have employed one of three methods to do this, the following explanations describe the principle behind them.

Cartoons
Unlike the popular meaning, that attributes the phrase to childrens’ animations, ‘cartoon’ was originally used to describe a drawing that is made specifically as a pattern for a painting. The cartoon is drawn actual size and it is most successful with images that can be reduced to a crisp outline. Firstly, choose what will be the important outlines of the drawing, then place the drawing on top of a clean sheet of paper at least the same size as the original. These will need to be held together firmly so that they do not move. Place these on a soft surface that will not resist the point of a needle or stylus that will be pushed through it, a blanket, piece of carpet or foam rubber will serve.

The complete drawing is then pricked out so that it creates a series of holes is made along the contours of the drawing. The distance between the holes will depend on the complexity of the drawing, but not so close as to cause the paper to be cut. The bottom piece of paper will now have the master drawing described in a series of holes. The outlines are then transferred to the canvas by placing the paper onto it’s surface and sieving ground charcoal onto the holes. Or else, a big stick of soft charcoal can be rubbed over the surface and the powder rubbed in with a finger. It is also possible to push a pencil or pen through each hole to create a mark.

Squaring up
Quite simply, this technique involves dividing the drawing (or photo) up into squares and then drawing a grid on the canvas with the same number of squares. The drawing can then be drawn again, concentrating on a square at a time. However, to avoid any distortion in the picture the original grid and the squared-up canvas must be in proportion.

Tracing
Probably the simplest method. Just as with the cartoon, the drawing is done actual size but, in this case, the back of the drawing is rubbed over with charcoal or red chalk. It is then held in position against the canvas with tape and the picture is then re-drawn, leaving the traced image on the canvas.