Photos from our Drawing Class last Saturday at the Albany Museum of Art.

Above is my finished drawing, still life model in back. We have a lot of fun, hanging out in a laid back atmosphere, working on our drawings.Our Instructor, Nick Nelson.

Here is a cool little demo that Nick drew for us.

Here are four of the techniques I have used to transfer a drawing sketch deign onto a canvas. Often my sketch is 8.5 x 11 inches (regular old printer paper). I like to paint big, so I often need to transfer the design onto my canvas.

1. Freestyle: For some this is easy, for some this is hard. I have found with soft curves and large non-geometrical shapes that often the best way to go is just DO IT WITH YOUR HANDS.

• Tape it on the wall next to your canvas.
• Using your eyes and hands, and a soft carbon pencil and start drawing.
• Start with large shapes first and leave out most detail since paint will cover it up anyway.

Some analytical type artists may find this easier with geometric designs, like a urban street scene, but I find it easier with rounded, soft designs, like a flower.

2. Use your printer/copier:

• Take you design, scan it into your computer.
• Use Photoshop or other imaging software Pencil Tool to make dark black lines over the Main design elements of the photo.
• Print it out in black and white using your Poster feature on the printer, thus enlarging it to the desired size.

Old School –

• You can also do this in the old school method, probably faster.
• Copy your sketch on the machine.
• Use a black sharpie to go over the main lines.
• Enlarge it on your copier.
• Tape pages together.
• Transfer it to canvas using graphite paper and stylus.

3. Use the Grid Method: This is a more technical type of freestyle.

• Make a copy of your sketch.
• Take a sharpie and make a square grid over your design.
• make a grid directly on the canvas in light pencil.
• Use this grid tracing each square on the sketch to each square on the canvas.

Keep in mind your aspect ratio. If your sketch is 5 x 5 inches and your canvas is 16 x 20 inches, you have a disparity between your aspect ratios that need to taken into consideration. This will make your canvas design “fatter” or “skinnier” depending on the disparity.

4. Use a projector:

• Buy one of those art projectors and use it to enlarge your sketch onto the canvas, then trace it with a pencil or light paint.

Is this cheating? The answer: depends on who you ask.Well, depends on who you ask. Are you using your OWN sketch, your OWN photo, or someone else’s photo? This has been debated before so I won’t go into it here.

This is method harder than it looks. At least with a el cheapo projector. I feel like a poor quality tracing of your design will lend itself to more artistic interpretation later. If you have a bad/weak tracing on your canvas, you must then go back and “re-sketch” it again using your own hand — Viola, back to freestyle method.

If you are a renaissance type person, use the camera obscura like the Old Masters. See CBS story, Was it Done with Mirrors? New Theory On How Old Masterpieces Were Created.