Homemade carbon paper testSo, I finally got around to seeing how the various carbon papers would hold up on watercolour paper with watercolours painted over them.
I added in plain graphite as well, because I feel like it's still probably the first and easiest carbon paper to make, most people are going to have a soft leaded graphite pencil somewhere around (B6-B8 is preferable).
Conclusions below
Graphite: Does what it says on the box, a nice clean line, doesn't seem to shift with wetness, didn't get darker after water was applied.
Water Miscible Graphite: Went down quite light with the odd smeary bit - I think this is due to not doing a very good job making the carbon swatch - this one is very light and patchy. Did shift a bit with wetness and did darken in places, the places that had smeary darker bits of graphite the graphite shifted and blurred into the watercolour as well as darkening. I don't see any advantages to using this over normal graphite to be honest.
Inktense Pencil: went down okay. Darkened and shifted with the application of wetness. I feel like this could be leveraged if you used colours rather than the black.
Inktense Block: went down the darkest, shifted and darkened with the application of wetness. Again I feel that if you used colours instead of black you could have a lot of fun with this, has immense possibilities.
Polychromos pencil: No shift or colour change, another one I think you could have fun with if you used colours. It did have issues with a bit of carbon smear as it was laid down, I think I held the page down a little hard with my fingers.
Faber Castell Colour Pencil: No shift or smearing, comes out very light in the end result, would again probably be fun to play with colours, but might need to use the darker shades available in this brand to get enough visibility on the paper once you've got some paint down.
Faber Castell Watercolour pencil: Some shifting and smearing, again could be useful if you used colours.
Albrecht Durer watercolour pencil: Some shift and smearing when wet, another to explore with colours.
Stadtler lumocolor permanent pencil: Slightly hydrophobic, not very noticeable, but worth making note of. No shift or colour change. Dark clean lines.
Creatacolour Nero soft pencil: Slight smearing and darkening of lines but didn't dirty the paint like the inktense ones did, viable alternative to get darker lines.Oct 15, 2024
I added in plain graphite as well, because I feel like it's still probably the first and easiest carbon paper to make, most people are going to have a soft leaded graphite pencil somewhere around (B6-B8 is preferable).
Conclusions below
Graphite: Does what it says on the box, a nice clean line, doesn't seem to shift with wetness, didn't get darker after water was applied.
Water Miscible Graphite: Went down quite light with the odd smeary bit - I think this is due to not doing a very good job making the carbon swatch - this one is very light and patchy. Did shift a bit with wetness and did darken in places, the places that had smeary darker bits of graphite the graphite shifted and blurred into the watercolour as well as darkening. I don't see any advantages to using this over normal graphite to be honest.
Inktense Pencil: went down okay. Darkened and shifted with the application of wetness. I feel like this could be leveraged if you used colours rather than the black.
Inktense Block: went down the darkest, shifted and darkened with the application of wetness. Again I feel that if you used colours instead of black you could have a lot of fun with this, has immense possibilities.
Polychromos pencil: No shift or colour change, another one I think you could have fun with if you used colours. It did have issues with a bit of carbon smear as it was laid down, I think I held the page down a little hard with my fingers.
Faber Castell Colour Pencil: No shift or smearing, comes out very light in the end result, would again probably be fun to play with colours, but might need to use the darker shades available in this brand to get enough visibility on the paper once you've got some paint down.
Faber Castell Watercolour pencil: Some shifting and smearing, again could be useful if you used colours.
Albrecht Durer watercolour pencil: Some shift and smearing when wet, another to explore with colours.
Stadtler lumocolor permanent pencil: Slightly hydrophobic, not very noticeable, but worth making note of. No shift or colour change. Dark clean lines.
Creatacolour Nero soft pencil: Slight smearing and darkening of lines but didn't dirty the paint like the inktense ones did, viable alternative to get darker lines.Oct 15, 2024
#tutorial
#augh
Comments
No comments yet