I then flip the tracing paper back over the right way and place it over my painting surface in the position required and hold it in place with tape or clips, once again I select a hard pencil and whilst pressing firmly on the pencil, trace over the drawing. This effectively transfers the drawing to the painting surface.

It is usually necessary to strengthen the drawing on the painting surface and fill in areas where the tracing has not come out, the amount of detail you put in is entirely up to you, but remember that all of this will eventually be covered up with paint, the drawing is only used as a guide. This image shows my completed drawing on canvas, ready for painting.

It should be noted that oil paints and thinners easily remove pencil/graphite so I seal it with a wash of acrylic paint. This is also a great time to tone the canvas, and so I generally do both at the same time. Here I have painted burnt Sienna Acrylic paint (thinned with water) lightly over the surface and lifted the lighter areas with tissue whilst the paint was still wet, this effectively gave me a tonal under painting. The surface is ready for painting once the acrylic has dried.

This tutorial has been taken from a recent painting "Curiosity" if you are interested in buying this painting £500, or prints please e-mail me.