Painting a boat - step 1 - transferring the image to the canvas

Here's something I'm working on for a Christmas present (I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't even know what a blog is, so hopefully there's no danger of spoiling the surprise!) In another break from my usual portraits, I'm having a go at painting a boat. I'll post my progress here, as well as a brief description of the techniques used.

Step one was to transfer the outline of the image from the source photograph to the canvas. To do this, I scanned in the photo, then using Fireworks, I superimposed a 4x4 rectangle grid over it:



Then I divided the canvas up into the same kind of grid using a hard 2H pencil (you can't see the lines clearly here due to poor photography!) Once the grid is drawn, it's easy to sketch in the outline of the image, and a lot faster and more accurate than trying to draw it freehand:



Keep checking back for updates.

Tags: painting, lessons, tutorials, illustration