Mount a Drawing onto a Panel
I’ve always hated transferring my completed drawings onto my painting surface. It’s a tedious process, whether I am using carbon paper or rubbing the back of my drawing with graphite. One major reason I don’t like transferring is that the line quality of the drawing loses its original life and vitality. In addition, many times my drawings are resized in Photoshop before painting them onto the painting support. Because of this, obtaining the level of detail the drawings require would be impossible using the traditional transfer process. Finally, I sought out a new process to transfer my drawings because of the huge amount of time the traditional method needed.
The following approach I currently use saves both time and frustration. The example below was done with a cradled panel support with cel-vinyl acrylic paint.
Materials you will need for this process:
Ampersand Cradled Gessobord or a cradled gessoed panel by Trekell Art
Strathmore Bristol Board, 2-Ply Plate (personal preference)
Painter’s tape
Golden Matte Medium
X-acto knife
Brayer
Sandpaper in 220 grit
2” paint brush
Paper towels
“Before I start to paint, I draw all the elements of my composition (i.e. characters, background, text, etc.) on separate sheets of tracing paper of different sizes. ”
Here’s the process:
Before I start to paint, I draw all the elements of my composition (i.e. characters, background, text, etc.) on separate sheets of tracing paper. NOTE: I do not necessarily draw all the elements to scale.
After all the elements are completed for my drawing, I scan each one and bring them into Photoshop and compile them into one completed composition scaled to size. You might be wondering how I know what size to scale the elements. I actually reuse my original thumbnail sketch as a guide in Photoshop. It is important that the Photoshop file is the exact size of the board you are going to paint on.
I bring my completed Photoshop file to a Fedex Copy Shop to be printed. In this example, I will be painting on an 11”x14” cradled board. Because of this, I will have Fedex print my file onto an 11”x17” Bristol Board paper. The Bristol paper is slightly larger than the actual drawing, therefore, you will have to cut it out with an X-acto knife. This is why I put a thin black outline around my drawing in Photoshop.
After the drawing is printed out, I cut it down to size with an X-acto knife.
Instead of now mounting the print-out to the cradled board, I apply one thin coat of Matte Medium to the top of the print-out and then wait for it to dry.*
After the top of the print-out is dry I turn it over and apply one thin coat of Matte Medium to the back and then wait for it to dry as well.*
*I do Steps 5 & 6 for two important reasons. 1) it helps to eliminate air bubbles, and, 2) it keeps the glue and dirt off of the drawing.Use painter’s tape to tape the edges of the cradled board.
Pour Matte Medium onto the top of the cradled board and then use a 2” paint brush to spread it over the entire surface. It is very important to make sure that the entire surface has even coverage. Don’t worry about using too much!
I evenly center the Bristol print-out over the cradled board and then LIGHTLY press it down with my fingers, starting from the center and moving outward.
Then I take a rubber brayer and I roll it out, starting from the middle, and move to the edge using as much pressure as possible.
Turn the panel over onto a smoothed out plastic trash bag.
I then top it off with weights and/or books. Let it dry overnight.
The next day, I look to see if there are any uneven edges and sand them down, using downward strokes.
I put one more coat of matte medium on the top of the drawing before I begin painting. I do this to make sure I have a good solid ground. You want at least 2 coats of matte medium. This allows you to use rubbing alcohol to remove any mistakes while you are painting in acrylic without affecting the drawing underneath.
