How to Create Your Own Transfer Paper

Trasferring images allows artists to practice their drawings before committing them to the final work of art. Transfer paper can be extremely expensive though and often times it is hard to find an appropriate size. Luckily, it is very simple to make both graphite and colorful transfer paper.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• oil pastels
• graphite pencils
• thin typing paper or tracing paper.

1. First, draw or photocopy the image you want to transfer onto typing paper.

2. Now flip your paper over. If you can still see your image through the paper, take your graphite pencil and color heavily over the areas where you can see your image. If you cannot see the image, just coat the general area on the paper where the image would be.

3. Lay the paper, image side up, on the item on which you wish to transfer the image. You may want to tape one side down lightly so that the image does not shift as you are tracing it. Go ahead and trace over the original image to transfer it. Periodically lift up one side of the paper to make sure that it is transferring well.

4. For a colorful trasfer, repeat the steps above substituting oil pastels for graphite pencil. Do not heavily apply the oil pastel though. A light to medium coating should be appropriate.

5. Now it should be simple to apply transfer images to any work of art. Good Luck!

Tips & Warnings

• When using oil pastels, some pastel may transfer in unwanted areas. This is why it is necessary to keep the oil pastel coating light.