Quick Drawing Tips: A Tracing Technique That Transfers a Photo to Canvas

A great way to learn to draw really well is to learn my quick drawing tracing technique. Anyone can do it, and your drawings will look like you’ve spent years with your pencil practicing sketching. First you take some photographs of the subject you’d like to draw like, your beloved, your dog, your car, your bedroom, or the ocean for example. If you don’t take photographs you can cut photos out of a magazine and start a file of the ones that you would like to draw.

Once you have chosen the photo you would like to draw, you will need to have it enlarged to the size you would like your drawing to be. Your local Kinko’s store can enlarge your photo to any size you’d like. You’ll also need to pick up some 140 pound watercolor drawing paper, tracing paper, some artist pencils, and an eraser at your local art store. Make sure that the artist pencils you choose have different size points and that one of them has a very thick 4B or 6B point.

On a large clean table, lay a piece of the tracing paper over your enlarged photo and trace along all the edges and important points in the photograph. After you have line traced your photo onto the tracing paper, turn the tracing paper over, and lay it face down onto a clean sheet of scratch paper. On the back side of your tracing darken and shade it in completely using the side of the artist pencil with the thickest point.

When the back side of your tracing is all shaded in, turn your tracing paper back over and tape it to your drawing canvas with the side you traced your image on facing up. Masking tape is the best tape to use. Smooth the shaded side of your tracing down so that it makes contact with the drawing paper. Using the tip of one of the finer point pencils, press down firmly and carefully as you trace over your image again. Your image will transfer lightly onto your canvas as you trace because the area you shaded acts like a carbon.

When you’ve finished tracing, remove the piece of tracing paper. Viola! Just like magic. A perfect outline of your photo appears on your canvas and is now ready for you to sketch in detail or paint. Now, carefully observe the fine details in your original photograph as you sketch them onto your canvassed image. Bravo! You have a beautiful professional looking piece of art that no one will ever know you traced part of.