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.

This preliminary drawing is the last thing I do before I start painting and I try my best to work out as many details as possible in this drawing.  Since I work in watercolors, it’s very hard to go back and change things after I start to paint.  When the drawing is finished, I use a lightbox to transfer it to a nice piece of watercolor paper…but that’s step two, and I’ll write more about that tomorrow.