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Monday, May 12, 2008

The next two steps



Now that the drawing is done and scanned, I blow it up and transfer it to tracing paper. Then I turn the tracing paper over and transfer the image to my watercolor paper... this way my paper is free of smudges, eraser markings, just general sketchy stuff. In this instance I didn't want any white so I did a first wash... pour using a very watered down aureleon yellow and a bit of cobalt. For this piece I'll only use those two colors and some permanent rose. After the paper is dry... completely dry, I put the first mask on... the piece isn't as orange as it looks in this image. In order for the drawing to show at all I had to darken everything.... the color is actually very pale, almost white.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, yay! I love following these!

Shez said...

Hey "Teach" got a question. What do you use to blow up your drawing for the tracing paper transfer. I see that some of your pours are 16x20, and on most printers the paper size is a lot smaller. Would love the know how to get my drawings to a larger size. I having to do a grid for them.:)

Helen Percy Lystra said...

I take a photo or scan, then I make it the size I want... when I print it I tile it... meaning it comes out in 3 or 4 sheets of paper and I put them together. It's fairly easy to do since it doesn't have to be an exact match on each piece... I can make adjustments. When I post next I'll take a shot of that part and post it too.

Joan said...

Helen - I'm back to see the contiuation of your painting. How large are you doing this? When I tried pouring with my sister, we worked small because we didn't have anywhere large enough to pour without making a mess. What/where do you pour into?

Helen Percy Lystra said...

I'm glad to see you here too Joan. I pour into a commercial size jelly roll pan... it will accomadate a half sheet nicely. I often do small studies first and they sell well... more affordable than the larger pieces. I'll try to remember to take a photo of all of my equipment when I post next.

Joan said...

Thanks for the info. I just gave your blog address to my sister, Michelle so she can check out your pouring technique. It will be like a mini class.

Shez said...

Thanks Helen.....you know I never read the book on my HP, sure enough I got tiles. WooHoo.
Good that we've got a classroom started....

Judybec said...

Helen, thanks for the class. I'll be checking in too!!