Homemade carbon paperSo, I've made my own graphite based carbon paper a few times now (I don't use it that often, but it's really useful when I do) and I was wondering - if you can make it with graphite, can you make it with other kinds of pencils?
Turns out you can!
No, no, you don't understand, this is BIG, because you can make carbon paper in whatever the heck colour you want or need at the time! And some of them won't shift if water is used over them! But they are still erasable if you want!
So the above image is the test I did after I made swatches of hopefully carbon paper from each of the pencils, and I honestly did NOT expect most of them to work, I'm totally stunned that they ALL did, way beyond expectations.
So we have in order.
Water miscible Graphite (Koh-i-noor, but I don't think the brand will matter)
Derwent Inktense Pencil
Derwent Inktense Block (the formula is slightly different between the pencils, blocks and paint pans so I tried both)
Polychromous Colour Pencil
Faber Castell Colour pencil
Faber Castell watercolour pencil
Albrech Durer watercolour pencil
Stadtler lumocolour permanent pencil
Creatacolour Nero Soft
Of these, the water miscible ones reacted to various degrees with water, so the graphite, watercolour and inktense ones, as well as the creatacolour nero had a slight reaction, the oil based pencils didn't react - they didn't seem to repel water either. This means if you wanted to have lines that won't smear when you paint over them with watercolour, the colour pencils would be perfect and you could do it in any colour you like (these are oil based pencils, I don't own any wax based ones, you'd have to try that yourself but it seems like it should work fine)
All of them erased cleanly EXCEPT the Stadtler lumocolour permanent, it erased partially, but not fully.
Now for anyone who doesn't already know how to make homemade carbon paper -
THE RECIPE!
Tracing paper
Pencil of your choice
Lighter fluid (or apparently any quick drying substance similar - I tried it with isopropal alcohol and it failed big time, so I suggest you stick with the lighter fluid)
1/ Take a sheet of velum style tracing paper (not the stuff like tissue paper, it must be the plasticky velum style or this won't work)
2/ Rub the pencil of your choice either over the whole sheet (if you want a whole sheet of carbon paper) or over whatever area you desire - you could even use more than one colour if you wanted but be aware that the colours will smudge together after you apply the lighter fluid and rub the pencil around. Get a good coating on the paper as evenly as possible.
3/ Get a cotton ball, or a wedged up piece of tissue and apply a small amount of lighter fluid to it, rub onto the pencil on your paper until the pencil changes into a smoother/ different surface.
4/ let any remaining dampness dry before use (this should take no time at all, if it remains wet something went wrong), then have fun! It's recommended you use a hard (H3 to H6) pencil to get clean crisp lines when you trace down.Oct 8, 2024
Turns out you can!
No, no, you don't understand, this is BIG, because you can make carbon paper in whatever the heck colour you want or need at the time! And some of them won't shift if water is used over them! But they are still erasable if you want!
So the above image is the test I did after I made swatches of hopefully carbon paper from each of the pencils, and I honestly did NOT expect most of them to work, I'm totally stunned that they ALL did, way beyond expectations.
So we have in order.
Water miscible Graphite (Koh-i-noor, but I don't think the brand will matter)
Derwent Inktense Pencil
Derwent Inktense Block (the formula is slightly different between the pencils, blocks and paint pans so I tried both)
Polychromous Colour Pencil
Faber Castell Colour pencil
Faber Castell watercolour pencil
Albrech Durer watercolour pencil
Stadtler lumocolour permanent pencil
Creatacolour Nero Soft
Of these, the water miscible ones reacted to various degrees with water, so the graphite, watercolour and inktense ones, as well as the creatacolour nero had a slight reaction, the oil based pencils didn't react - they didn't seem to repel water either. This means if you wanted to have lines that won't smear when you paint over them with watercolour, the colour pencils would be perfect and you could do it in any colour you like (these are oil based pencils, I don't own any wax based ones, you'd have to try that yourself but it seems like it should work fine)
All of them erased cleanly EXCEPT the Stadtler lumocolour permanent, it erased partially, but not fully.
Now for anyone who doesn't already know how to make homemade carbon paper -
THE RECIPE!
Tracing paper
Pencil of your choice
Lighter fluid (or apparently any quick drying substance similar - I tried it with isopropal alcohol and it failed big time, so I suggest you stick with the lighter fluid)
1/ Take a sheet of velum style tracing paper (not the stuff like tissue paper, it must be the plasticky velum style or this won't work)
2/ Rub the pencil of your choice either over the whole sheet (if you want a whole sheet of carbon paper) or over whatever area you desire - you could even use more than one colour if you wanted but be aware that the colours will smudge together after you apply the lighter fluid and rub the pencil around. Get a good coating on the paper as evenly as possible.
3/ Get a cotton ball, or a wedged up piece of tissue and apply a small amount of lighter fluid to it, rub onto the pencil on your paper until the pencil changes into a smoother/ different surface.
4/ let any remaining dampness dry before use (this should take no time at all, if it remains wet something went wrong), then have fun! It's recommended you use a hard (H3 to H6) pencil to get clean crisp lines when you trace down.Oct 8, 2024
#tutorial
#augh
Comments
THIS IS SO COOL!! Im saving this just in case ill need it in a future project (bc i know i will)
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