What is the best thing to use to draw a sketch on canvas so that it doesn't show through acrylic paint?

Answer 1

I declare officially that SOFT charcoal is by far the best drawing tool because it can easily be erased by anything: fingers, rag, paper towel, kleenex tissue....I mean completely erased. If you want to prevent your drawing from messing your paint, protect it with a spray or go over it with diluted paint using a liner brush.

Answer 2

Its very normal for the paint to cover up the sketch, but there are a few things you can do. (I'm going to assume that your sketch has a background and at least one foreground object) First you can paint the background using special care to avoid the foreground object but still painting to the pencil line. You can also paint in chunks, using only one color at a time so that you don't cover your sketch with unnecessary paint. You can also paint the background first then draw the sketch on top of the background.

Answer 3

sketch with very watered down acrylic paint, like yellow or light blue. Add enough water to it to make it totally liquid and almost see-thought and then sketch with a thin paint-brush that doesn't drip.
If you do this, only very faint lines will show, which you can later easily cover with paint.

Answer 4

Nothing will show through acrylic paint. Unless you are painting very thin/lean (or use very inferior paint).

I use charcoal or even sketch with the paint itself. The charcoal you can brush of to an almost invisible grey line.

Answer 5

just use a normal pencil, and use some type of fixative before you paint over the lines, because the graphite might mix with the paint and darken it and make it look muddy. I do this all the time, and have no problems with lines showing through. If you're still having trouble, you might want to outline your painting with black india ink like I do, or black paint or something, and then you'll have some nice outlines, but not ugly pencil ones.

Answer 6

You need better acrylic paint if your lines are showing through. I suggest Golden brand, that's a personal choice, I'm sure there are other good ones out there. I like Golden the best.

Answer 7

All of these answers are good but also...

Try drawing very lightly with a blue or green colouring pencil. Just a normal colouring pencil not a pastel or chalk pencil.