You can also buy graphite paper which is like the old carbon paper except with graphite – basically the same thing Harry spoke of except it’s an art product – (transfer paper). Put it between your tracing paper and the production paper and go over the tracing.

I do what Harry says using a soft graphite. Then I use a colored ball point pen to go over the tracing so I can see what I have transferred. I find that the graphite transfer paper is too hard to erase.

Quwatha Valentine

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/quwatha-valentine.html

http://quwatha-valentine.artistwebsites.com/index.html

Ken Does the graphite transfer paper have a wax? if so, it is difficult to erase after ?…
I do what harry said, yet, I use charcoal instead of graphite, and I use a ball pen to delineate because you will see where you have already made the tracing.

I only used it once many years ago for transferring a drawing for a watercolor and found I had pushed too hard because the transferred lines were way heavy. Then again this was before I learned to draw so I can’t say much about my method beyond that. But the lines seemed to erase well enough as I recall.

The product I linked to is only a few bucks so it wouldn’t be expensive to order a package next time you need something and give it a try. I do know that the piece I had was larger than the transfer and would have lasted through a number of uses if I had wanted it to. But that was my first and last watercolor so I no longer needed it. These days I don’t use any method to transfer except measuring for the left side eye and going from there so my suggestion hasn’t got a lot of mileage behind it … but I do know it worked fine for what I needed at the time.

I avoid graphite/pencil lead if favor of charcoal. Graphite has a reputation for striking through paint later on. After transferring the drawing, I go over it with a small brush and raw umber. I let this dry overnight, and then lightly erase the next morning with a kneaded erasure, and go to work.

You can also make your own carbon paper, get a white sheet of parchment paper, other papers may also work, cover the paper with a layer of vine charcoal, (soft works best), rub it into the paper with your fingers, shake off excess carbon. When you transfer the drawing to your final working paper use a kneaded eraser to remove excess carbon, all you want is a light drawing to use as a guide.