Diluted Paint Much Better Than Pencil for Sketching!

Hi,

I forgot to thank this group for the very simple, but effective tip of using oil paints diluted with turpentine for the initial sketch for a painting, instead of using pencil.

MUCH better and cleaner, and easy to wipe off mistakes with a rag at the early stages.

Much better than smearing all that graphite around! Yeachh!

And the next best thing was the suggestion to erase as much of the original pencil lines as possible, leaving only a light outline of what you need to see. This was best done with a kneaded eraser.

Again, thanks folks!

I'll be posting this new stuff soon hopefully!

Slick

I've used a light blue pencil for a long time to sketch onto my canvas. Doesn't smudge or bleed. Of course, pick a pencil that is inert to your solvent. I paint in Acrylic so use a 'photo' blue. Tried a watercolor pencil once. Didn't realized that it really was watercolor! Oops!

turp breaks down the pigment. use paint thinner.

use turp to clean.