Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Alex, and welcome to this class, where I'll be
guideing you through my process for creating
a carbon transfer. This technique is remarkably
quick and efficient, enabling you to produce
accurate sketches from your reference images onto your chosen painting
surface with ease. First, I'll go over all the
materials that you need, and then I'll guide you through
my process step by step. By the end of this class, you'll have a solid
understanding of how to implement this technique in
your own painting projects, saving you lots of time and also enhancing the
accuracy of your sketches. I'm excited that you're going to be joining
me in this class, and I hope this makes a valuable addition
to your skill set.
2. Your Class Project: First of all, let's
discuss the class project. I would love for you to
have a go at creating your own carbon transfer onto a painting surface
of your choice. You can choose your
own reference image or you could use the one that
I'll be using in this class. I will link it down below in the projects and
resources section. It's of an alcan and I got it off of the
website Unsplash. You may also want to
have look on there as all the images
are royalty free. Please share a photo of your completed carbon
transfer below. I'm excited to see what
projects you'll be working on and the kind of paintings that you're going
to be creating. Next, we're going to go over all the materials that
you're going to need.
3. Materials : The first thing you're
going to need is a surface to transfer
your image onto. This will be your
painting surface. I'm going to be using this
canvas board and it's roughly the same size as the reference image I'm
going to be using. I printed my reference
off in A four. Obviously, if you
wanted to go bigger, you can print off A three, and if you're able to, you can print off larger than A three. Most of the time, people
won't have printers at home that can print
larger than A three, so you could always outsource a printout or go to your
local print shop and they could print it bigger for you if you wanted to go for
a larger Canvas size. But also just bear in mind
that you're going to need to have a piece of carbon paper
that is also the same size, so you probably don't
want to go too big. The next thing that
you're going to need is your reference image and a piece of tracing paper
that is the same size. So I have got a piece of
A four tracing paper. You will also need a pencil The best pencil to
go for is an H, which stands for hard. I'm going for a I believe
this is a two H pencil or a four H. You don't want to go for one
that's too soft, so don't reach for anything like a nine B or seven or eight B, you want to go for
a hard pencil. You're also going to
need a carbon stick. This one's fairly
self explanatory, and you can pick them
up fairly easily and inexpensively
from any craft store. It's also handy to have
some mask in tapes so you can secure down
your tracing paper and your reference image. Last but not least,
you're going to need a can of fixative spray. I've got this one
from Dale owie. It's great. I can
definitely recommend it. Just make sure that
the one you get is suitable for fixing charcoal.
4. Making Your Carbon Paper: The first step is to
create your carbon paper. For this, you want to grab
your A four or A three sheet of tracing paper and
your carbon stick. Using the long
length of the stick, you just want to rub this
across the surface of the tracing paper in
a nice even motion. Once you've gone
all the way across, then you just want to
use your fingertips to gently over the surface. This is just to fill in
any empty spaces or cracks there may be in the carbon
stick marks that you've made. This point, some of you may be wondering why I
don't just use pre bought carbon paper
that you can pick up in shops and
stationary stores, and that this is for
a couple of reasons. The first one is, I find it more economical
to do it this way because I won't just use this sheet once and
then throw it away. I will use it time
and time again. I can just top it
up with a bit more of the carbon stick
as and when needed, and I will keep it up on my
shelf with a clean layer of tracing paper on
top just to stop dust and things collecting
on the surface. The second reason is
that I find carbon paper quite waxy When you
make the transfer, it can leave a waxy residue
on your painting surface, whether that be canvas
or watercolor paper. Yeah, I just find
that you don't get that waxiness doing it this way. After I've washed my hands, I got everything nice and clean, I will then attach the piece of carbon paper that I made
onto my canvas panel. I will use the masking
tape just to keep it sec. Make sure that you line up the carbon paper exactly where you want it on
your painting surface. Obviously, it won't need to
cover up the entirety of the painting surface if
you only want to make the transfer on a
small part of it.
5. Transferring Your Image: The next step is to
transfer your image. I've printed my reference
off onto A four paper, which coincidentally
is the size of the carbon paper and also
my painting surface, that all works out
really, really nicely. Secure this in place with
some more mask in tape. You don't want the drawing to be moving around while you're
trying to transfer it. Yeah, just make sure you
secure it all in place. Now, using your hard pencil, you want to follow the outlines
in your reference image. This is the point
where you can decide how much detail you want to include and how much
you want to leave out. You can make it a
really basic line drawing or you could
include all the detail. It's entirely up to you. At this point, you may want
to take a little sneak peek. A to see if it's worked
and B to see if you're missing out on any lines
that you wanted to add. Because you can't see what lines you've gone over already. It's just a sanity check to make sure that you've got everything
in there that you want. So I'm just flicking between the tube to my
reference image and my painting surface and just filling in any lines that
I might have missed. When you reached a point
where you're happy, you can peel away
the masking tape and reveal the line drawing. And yeah, hopefully,
you've been successful and you have a nice outline
on your painting surface.
6. 'Fixing' the Drawing: The next step is to fix
your drawing in place. This step is really
important because if you were to apply paint to the
surface without doing this, it would make the carbon smudge. For this, I am using
my fixative spray from De La owe. It's colorless. Give the can a good shake, and I normally apply in
two thin even layers, make sure that the first layer dries fully before
you apply the second. And make sure that you are
in a well ventilated space. Once your fixative has dried, you should then be able to run your fingers along the
surface and there should be no smudging or transfer of the carbon onto your fingertips.
7. Adding a Wash: The next step is
completely optional, but I'm going to wash
onto the canvas. I normally start
my paintings with a yellow och wash. For this, I'm going to use some
ware down acrylic paint, and I'm going to use this on the surface of
the canvas panel. Hopefully, as you will
see, there should be no transfer of the
carbon into the paint.
8. Closing Thoughts : So here is my completed transfer or my Canvas panel
with my toned ground. As you'll see from
watching this class, it's a really simple
and effective method. I hope this class has been
useful for you and given you a technique to add to
your ever growing skill set. You wanted to follow along
with my artistic journey. Then please follow me on
Instagram at Alex Scoard Art. And please go and check out my other classes on Skillshare. I've got plans for Lots
more in the future, too. Thank you so much for watching, and I hope to see you in
another one of my classes soon.
Alexandra Goddard, Pet Portrait and Animal Artist
