After I’m finished with my preliminary drawing my next step is to transfer that drawing to a nice piece of watercolor paper. I use a 300 pound hot-press paper, made by Fabriano. It’s a very thick paper with a flat surface. The flat surface is much easier to draw on than the rougher cold-press papers and the thickness allows it to absorb a lot of water and paint without buckling.
I use a lightbox to help me trace the drawing onto the watercolor paper with a hard (H or 2H) pencil. I like the harder pencil in this case because leaves a light line which I can easily erase. When I’m tracing, I try to do it quickly and accurately, but I try not to get to hung up in details, because with the light shining from behind the image I can’t really see the paper very well. After I’m done tracing, and I take the paper off the lightbox, then I very carefully add details, and adjust the drawing. This is the final step before I start applying paint, and I want to be sure everything is just the way I want it.
When the drawing is done, I soak it in water for 5 minutes and then staple it(while it’s still wet) to my painting board. The board is 1/2″ plywood. After the paper dries, it will be ready for painting. Because it’s been presoaked, the paper the surface will remain flat as I paint on it.
2 Comments
This looks amazing, Jason. I love the architecture and the organic. And you use 300 lb. paper? I keep meaning to step up to the heavy stuff but I tend to tighten up to much if I work with anything more expensive than the 140 lb.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the piece develops, and to the book!
Brian
Wow–Someone’s actually reading my blog! Thanks for the good word, Brian. I’d actually like to move down to a thinner paper now that I’ve started to use the soak and staple technique, which really helps to keep the surface flat.