WATERCOLOR TUTORIAL:
Zephyr (stage two)
There are many ways to transfer your preliminary sketch onto the final working surface.
Some people use the grid method, others light boxes, etc. I find the grid method
too time-
You must be careful during this stage. If the tracing moves even a fraction while
you’re transferring, you’ll have to start over. I tape the tracing to the board with
some acid-
Note: normally, I give my paintings a 1/2” border, which is achieved by putting artist’s tape on the edges, but this one was so small that I decided to forego it.
I wanted this piece to have the look and feel of traditional Chinese watercolor paintings, so I erased the preliminary design on the girl’s dress and dug into my reference folder for some traditional Chinese fabric patterns. The background was also inspired by those.