How to print a sketch of a photo on canvas?

January 6, 2016 2:09 PM

I want to take a photograph of my cats and print it onto canvas as a "sketch," so I can paint over it at a paint-and-sip party. How do I do this?

In the recent post on the blue about "paint-and-sip" parties, someone mentioned a variation in which you can paint a portrait of your pet. I found several references (1, 2) to this online, but none in my area. I figured no problem --- there are plenty of regular paint-and-sip events near me, including one run by a friend, and I thought maybe I could just do the "print photo onto canvas ahead of time" step on my own and bring it into a normal painting party where you start with a blank canvas.

But... I cannot figure out how to get a photo converted into a sketch on canvas for a reasonable price. Maybe I am googling the wrong terms, but anything I see that looks like the right thing is close to $100. My price point is more like $20-40 at most.

How are the studios that run these pet-painting parties printing pictures parsimoniously? And how can I do the same?

posted by slenderloris to Shopping (11 answers total)

Print the photo out - do it in sections if you have to and overlap them. (Search for Print a Large Image on Multiple Pages. You can do it in Excel.) Get a pencil - preferable a softer graphite -and rub the whole back with a thick layer pencil. Essentially you're creating a carbon backed paper. Now, put the paper backside (pencil covered side) down, with the image facing you. Tape it down. Now, trace over your image with a ballpoint pen. This should transfer the image to the canvas. Do a test before you do all the work. You could also get carbon paper but you don't really need it. Here's a video. (People are either using a method like this, projecting the image with a projector and tracing, or freehand sketching.)
posted by Crystalinne at 2:23 PM on January 6, 2016

I was going to suggest trace transfer but Crystalinne got there first.

If you flip the image horizontally and print it on a laser printer, you can use acetone or xylene to do the transfer. Both are very nasty chemicals, so use care.
posted by scruss at 2:28 PM on January 6, 2016

Or try Spoonflower.
posted by clew at 2:59 PM on January 6, 2016

Rather than enlarging and making a transfer, you can also print your photo onto a regular sheet of paper and divide it up into a grid. You can pencil a larger grid onto the canvas and then, by going from square to square, re-draw the image. This will get you a pencil outline with the correct proportions.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2016

I do what Crystalinne suggests, as does one of my friends (a popular artist on etsy). It works! In contrast, I have never had luck with the grid method; it requires a sense of space and a type of artistic talent that I just don't possess.
posted by sockermom at 3:26 PM on January 6, 2016

Buy some injet canvas (~$10) and use a regular inkjet printer.

(It's some kind of faux-canvas, but so are the expensive services you're looking at. I'd think it would be fine for painting over. Inkjet materials by nature have to bind well and minimize distortion when wetted etc.)
posted by anonymisc at 3:40 PM on January 6, 2016

If you have or can borrow a projector, you can point it to the canvas and trace over the projection. The size is easily adjusted by distance.
posted by meijusa at 11:37 PM on January 6, 2016

The first thing I thought of was to use the Photoshop tool or an online app to convert your photo to a line drawing. I don't have a specific recommendation, but there are lots of them out there.

From that point you can do the carbon tracing as described above, or print the sketch onto one of those iron-on sheets for home printers, and iron it onto the canvas
posted by CathyG at 11:57 AM on January 7, 2016

I hope this helps. I have been doing this (step-by-step) for years now and have really perfected it. It doesn't matter if it's a photo or not that you start with. (You end up printing whatever you want to transfer anyway)
It is very simple and very cheap although it is a waiting game (about 3 days to complete your canvas due to drying wait times) Check out do it yourself canvas
posted by evcourtexaminer at 12:26 PM on January 7, 2016

If you choose to go the tracing route and want to use carbon paper it comes in rolls at the art store.
posted by ljesse at 2:15 PM on January 7, 2016

I've used the projector method a couple times to paint panels of Calvin & Hobbes comics, and it works pretty well because the content is basically line-art. Continuous-tone images might be tougher to "outline" unless you first run your image through a sketch or edge-enhancement filter.

You could also run your image through a filter to get something closer to line art, then have that printed on a canvas.
posted by achrise at 7:10 AM on January 8, 2016