Transferring designs to canvas–update

I’ve written before about the various methods used to transfer designs to canvas or other surfaces. There are three ways to do it: projector, grid, or cartoon.

Typically, I use grids. Grids can handle any scale and I like working out final design elements on the canvas grid before picking up the brush. I can grid off a sketch and finish the drawing on the canvas. With the other methods, the drawing (or cartoon) has to be finished.  But grids are not practical for watercolor. Unlike canvas where the grid can be covered by paint, the grid cannot be covered and must be erased from the paper instead, which can smudge or tear.

I’ve used projectors in the past and was dissatisfied with the experience. The projector has to be aligned with the canvas just so, and any pressure on the canvas can distort or misalign things. Because you have to draw in the dark, it’s easy to lose overall sense of the drawing. My best success with projectors was with watercolors–small-format paper on hard, level surfaces.

I hadn’t used the other method–cartoons–until recently. A cartoon is a drawing made to the exact dimension of the target surface. You use carbon or transfer paper to trace over the drawing. Or you can perforate the lines of the cartoon and wipe charcoal over the cartoon’s surface, covering all the lines. The charcoal penetrates the perforations and gets deposited on the canvas. With either method the cartoon is destroyed.

If you plan to use cartoons for large canvases, the challenges are obvious. You need drawing paper and transfer paper large enough to cover the entire surface. If you have those items, then cartoons can be effective. Cartoons were (are) routinely used for murals.

I recently prepared a small canvas–20′ x 24′–using a cartoon. The canvas was prepared with a thin warm ground of raw umber. The ground cannot be too dark or the transferred drawing will not be visible. In this instance, the ground was at the outer limit of visibility–almost too dark to see the drawing.

For the drawing, I used a 20″ x 24″ piece cut from a 5′ roll of drawing paper. The paper is mediocre and I don’t plan to do finished drawings with it, but for cartoons it’s fine. After finishing the drawing, I  cut out a 20″x 24″ piece of transfer paper from a 24″ 30″ sheet.

I taped the transfer paper to the canvas then taped the drawing over the transfer paper. Then I traced the drawing with a pen, pressing firmly as I worked. The drawing was transferred perfectly to the canvas. The design is pretty simple but complicated enough to be a real test of the process. I was prepared to apply spray varnish over the drawing if needed, but the lines withstood smudging well enough.

Here’s the beginning of the painting. It’s very simple, a gray griselle just to fix the drawing. The drawing is clear enough that I could have stared a more complete treatment straightaway, but I didn’t know that at the outset, and I was afraid that the drawing might get rubbed away.

The unfinished ‘Two Women Talking in Playhouse Square’ on the easel

I haven’t made up my mind about the cartoon process. I still am not sure if I will use it on large paintings but for watercolors, it’s perfect.