Flipping and rubbing

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To prepare your new design elements for transfer you need to turn your tracing paper into transfer paper.

Any soft lead graphite instrument will do. I use graphite sticks because you can cover large areas quickly by using the side of the stick.

On a flat, smooth surface such as the back of a drawing pad or scrap foam board, flip your tracing paper over and rub graphite over the areas where your lines are.

Remember, you are coating the BACK of the drawing with a fairly dense coat of graphite.

Distribute evenly

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After you've coated the paper with graphite you need to even out the graphite coating and smooth away the graphite dust.

Take a wadded tissue and, using a circular motion, smooth the graphite into the tooth of the tracing paper.

Make sure all areas to be transferred to the painting are covered.

Shake any excess graphite dust into the trash can.

Getting it on the painting

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Take your "cartoon"; and position it on your painting. Tape an edge or two down, gently.

Trace your design using a ball point pen and a light touch. I use a red pen because it's easier for me to see.

Use moderate pressure when tracing.

Too much pressure can bruise grooves into the surface of your watercolor paper. The dents can show up as dark lines if painted over.

Interest added: background

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On the far left you can see the transferred image of the figures.

I refine the drawing at this point by working over the transferred areas with pencil.

On the immediate left you have the finished figures.

I used three colors, raw sienna, dioxazine purple, and cadmium red to quickly paint in the figures in a loose manner. These were painted with a #4 round sable brush.

The figures are really nothing more than indications of people. People shapes. Although they are in silhouette, the colors suggest details that aren't really there.

Interest added: foreground and middleground

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I decided to approximate the trail tracks left by previous mechanized hikers. I've seen them before, but I've never really studied them in depth. A ruts a rut, eh?

A fairly dark mix of pthalocyanine green, alizarin crimson, and a little ivory black was used to get some interesting grays.

I used a lighter gray to rough in the lines and then intensified the darks where needed.

After the painting dried thoroughly I removed any excess pencil marks with a kneaded eraser.

AFTER: A different perspective

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The visual flow of the original painting (click image below) reads vertically, right up the big blue tree trunk (left of center), off the page, and back down the tree on the right to the path, which leads you to the middle of the page.

With the changes, the visual flow starts again up the blue tree trunk, you jump immediately to the people in the distance and pan back to the foreground. Which again pulls your eye up the tree on the right and sweeps left across the canopy of color.

Notice how the addition of people draws your interest and implies a story in process.

(Part 1 Here)