Transfer & Enlarge A Drawing Freehand

Use Alignment & Division marks to help transfer a drawing to watercolor paper

The surface of most professional grade watercolor papers is sturdy and tough, but is still suceptible to damage from repeated or corrected pencil marks and erasing.

To avoid potential damage to the paper, one can layout the original drawing on paper meant for pencil. Once the original drawing is perfected, it can be transferred to watercolor paper for painting.

This approach allows you to make all the necessary adjustments and ensures that the watercolor paper will be free of unwanted marks and corrections.

Sometimes it’s the case that we have a drawing or study that is smaller than we’d like to have for the finished work.

There are several ways to transfer a drawing to watercolor paper for painting. When the drawing is the same as the expected size of the painting it’s an easy task that can be accomplished by tracing or using transfer paper.

When the drawing needs to be transferred and enlarged at the same time, it’s a little more involved.

If you happen to have a scanner, printer and something like Adobe Photoshop, it’s possible to enlarge the image with the scanner and image software and then print to the image for tracing. For any final painting that is larger than a regular sheet of paper requires a large scale printer that is capable of printing at the final size.

Without the benefit of these special pieces of technology, one is left with only the option of enlarging by eye and hand.

Although a little more difficult, it is helped along by paying attention to the location and placement of pencil lines in relation to the edges of the drawing and with the help of some known measurement marks.

The tutorial video below steps through the process working from a thumbnail value composition and using alignments as a guide.