Watercolor Research Notes [Supplementary: How to Trace Lines onto Watercolor Paper]

Good evening! This is Fuya. This time, I have a supplementary article on how to trace lines onto watercolor paper.
▶How to trace lines onto watercolor paper Part 2
▶How to trace lines onto watercolor paper Part 1

▶Click here for previous watercolor research notes

Reasons why I recommend homemade transfer sheets

[Experiment using commercially available carbon paper]

In my previous article, I wrote about how to make homemade transfer sheets (homemade carbon paper), but I'm sure quite a few of you are thinking, Why not just use store-bought carbon paper!! That would be easier!! So, for this article, I will conduct an experiment using these three types of paper.

1. Homemade carbon paper
2. Commercial carbon paper
3. Chaco paper

While I'm at it, let's try Chaco paper too✨ Chaco paper is originally a sheet for transferring onto fabric, but it might actually be useful.
Since it's water-based, it's said to "erase with water." Is that true!?

① Tracing a photo of a rose

Let's start the experiment right away. Let's try tracing using a photo of a rose.

Here are the tracing results! I tried to use about the same amount of pressure.

The density differs this much between homemade and commercial. You might think that darker is better, but since pencil lines cannot be erased once watercolor paint is applied over them, if they are too dark, the outlines will stand out in a bad way.
By the way, pencil lines for botanical art are about 2H. They are drawn very lightly.

I thought the texture of the Chaco paper was surprisingly good, soft like a colored pencil. The ingredients are [paper, pigment, wax, surfactant]. Since the ingredients of colored pencils are pigment (dye), wax, glue, and talc (powdered soapstone), they are likely similar.

② Trying to erase the lines

Next, I verified how much it can be erased with a kneaded eraser. It's scary if you can't erase it when you want to make corrections after tracing!

The results are like this ↓ Homemade carbon paper erases easily. Commercial carbon paper was quite erasable despite being dark. However, in some parts, the color got into the watercolor paper and was difficult to remove. The Chaco paper's color is a pale pink, so it doesn't stand out that much.

3. Try applying water

Let's apply water at the end of the experiment!!

Chako has seriously disappeared!!!!!!

Chako, when I applied water, it repelled the water a little, perhaps because of the wax. Furthermore, the paper was faintly stained pink. As a result, it doesn't seem to have any use as tracing paper for watercolors, but it's cute, so I'll forgive it!!

As you can see from this experiment, when tracing lines onto watercolor paper, I recommend making your own carbon paper. After all, faint, unobtrusive pencil lines suit watercolor paper best✨

That concludes the results of the experiment using carbon paper.