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White Transfer Paper

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Does anyone know of a white transfer paper that actually works on a surface, canvas in this case, coated with acrylic artist's paints? I've tried a number of different brands and none, zero, work on this surface. They barely work on black Crescent board. Painting is sort of my avocation and I'm always in need of transferring an image onto a dark ground coat or partially complete painting.

I could use some help here.
 

Boudica

Back to "educational purposes"
Would a really low tac vinyl work? Just tossing out an idea to find out how dumb it might be...
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Not trying to mask anything. Trying to trace an image onto canvas using white carbon or graphite paper. I have the image on paper, I need to trace it onto the canvas with the acrylic coat already on it. Stick a piece of white transfer paper under the image on paper and trace away with a dull pencil. Remove the image on paper and the carbon/graphite paper and the sketch of what I need to paint is right there on the canvas.
 

Boudica

Back to "educational purposes"
Not trying to mask anything. Trying to trace an image onto canvas using white carbon or graphite paper. I have the image on paper, I need to trace it onto the canvas with the acrylic coat already on it. Stick a piece of white transfer paper under the image on paper and trace away with a dull pencil. Remove the image on paper and the carbon/graphite paper and the sketch of what I need to paint is right there on the canvas.
Ahh, I see. I was thinking it was for protection. Hmm... I've heard of a similar project, but I guess it was reversed. He wanted digital prints of his artwork on canvas, then he was going to paint over that. I never saw how that worked out. I should ask.
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Ahh, I see. I was thinking it was for protection. Hmm... I've heard of a similar project, but I guess it was reversed. He wanted digital prints of his artwork on canvas, then he was going to paint over that. I never saw how that worked out. I should ask.

I've been known to print a high contrast de-saturated image on the canvas. Especially on larger canvases. Mostly because I'm not a good draftsman. It doesn't help as much as you might think. If you were doing paint by numbers it would be OK but totally useless if you're using a ground coat and somewhat helpful when painting a base coat without a ground coat. Once you paint on it, the printed image is gone forever.

Overhead projector or pounce?
Tried both at various times. The overhead projector is just way too difficult to line up square, sized, and parallel. Even if you get it set up properly, the first mark on the canvas tends to move everything out of alignment. Pounce patterns are not sufficient for transferring small detailed images. Even if they were, they're far to messy, leaving powder all over where you don't want it.

White carbon oir graphite paper is just what is needed except I can't find any that works properlky on acrylic paint. I'm about to tray an experiment today with matte acrylic varnish. Perhaps this will leave a surface where the transfer paper can work at least marginally well. We'll see.
 

Johnny Best

Active Member
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
In the past, I got most of my white and other color transfer paper from a sewing place. Not many of them around anymore, so you might need to look online.

transfer white paper.jpg
 
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