Materials and intentions
Tracing Paper
#1 or #2 (soft) Drawing or writing pencil
Graphite stick - 4B or softer (optional)
Ballpoint pen - (I used red)
Plain Facial Tissues
Masking tape
Requirements:
A painting that's not quite "there" yet.
The desire to finish the painting
Some ideas to try
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BEFORE: Focal point without a payoff
This painting (see above) had laid around the studio for a few months collecting dust and cat hair. It was an O.K. painting as it was, but after living with it for a time I decided there were some simple additions I could add to "complete" this painting.
All elements in the woods scene were working to pull you straight down the muddy path to...what?
An empty spot (see left.)
And not a very interesting trip there either.
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Laying down some paper
Something was missing. The setting looked rather ominous in spite of all the bright fall colors. I felt like anything could come tearing over the crest of the hill at any moment.
Giving it some thought, I started by laying some tracing paper over the area I was going to work on.
I used some masking tape to gently tape a couple edges down to keep the tracing paper in position.
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Can you see what you're doing?
Your tracing paper should be translucent enough to see the basic details of your underlying painting.
If you have a light box to work with, heavier papers such as layout or plain bond paper can be used in a darkened room.
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Elements of interest
By this time I had decided to add a strolling pair of figures in silhouette.
I loosely drew in some figures. Just some basic human forms.
I wanted to give the impression of the figures walking away from the viewer, but that was secondary to setting the scale of the scene by deciding on the height of the people in the distance.
The middle and foreground seemed fairly non-descript so...
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Maybe a little tracking...
To show evidence of others enjoying the park I doodled in some muddy tracks.
The figures established that the path was just wide enough for an access road so I added some indications automotive tracks.
I threw in some random bicycle or motorcycle ruts because that's what I usually trip on.
(Continued in Part 2)
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Trying ideas with tracing paper - Part 1
Watercolor Painting Tutorials)