Home Craft Activities Carbon copy portraits with wax crayon

Carbon copy portraits with wax crayon

Carbon copy portraits with wax crayon

I'm so in love with the beautiful effect of these self portraits. The technique is so simple and achievable with minimal materials required. Instead of using carbon paper to create our traced drawings, me used wax crayon and the effect is really fun!

MATERIALS:

  • Thick non textured paper - we used acrylic paper but cartridge paper would be fine
  • Watercolour paints and brush
  • Soft wax crayons
  • A printout of a portrait the same size as your paper
  • Paper clips or small bull dog clips
  • A pencil or ball point pen

HOW TO:

Using watercolour paints, create a colourful background for your portrait. Keep the colours pale otherwise your portrait won't show up well. Once the paint has fully dried, you are ready to draw.

Print out a portrait that you would like to trace. Cover the back of the printed portrait paper with black wax crayon. Make sure you apply a thick, full layer of wax crayon otherwise you will have gaps in the final drawing. You can experiment with other colours, but we liked the effect of black best. 

Pro tip: Test a small section of wax crayon on a scrap piece of paper to make sure it transfers when traced. Some wax crayons are too hard and don't transfer well.

Securely clip the portrait paper on top of the coloured background using 4 paper clips or small bull dog clips. It's important that your paper doesn't move around while you are drawing. Begin tracing your photo pressing hard to create the lines using a sharp pencil or ball point pen.

 

Make sure you trace all the details of your photo. You can shade areas too. The more details you add, the more impressive your final artwork will look.

When you are finished tracing, carefully remove the clips to reveal your beautiful portrait.

 

Looking at the 2 examples we made, we preferred the black drawing but you can experiment with different colours.

 

If you would like to delve deeper into this process, I recommend heading to Brandi Hofer Studio. Brandi has some fantastic tutorials and classes available on portraiture, mural painting and much more. She even has a book and podcast!

Happy art making friends!

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