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That guy on here said to use a #2 pencil for sketching the base of my painting
Some random user from this forum told me to sketch with a #2 pencil instead of charcoal before painting. I tried it at 2am on a portrait of a cat wearing a top hat. The graphite smeared into the paint and now the cat has a gray ghost face floating next to it. Has anyone else had pencil bleed through acrylic like that?
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bencampbell9d ago
Oh yeah, graphite and acrylic don't play nice together, that ghost face is basically the pencil smearing into wet paint and muddying it up. A light hand with a harder graphite like a 2H works way better for sketching under acrylic because it doesn't leave as much loose crap to mix into the paint. Next time try a water-soluble pencil or just do a thin wash of paint first to seal the drawing before you go in with color.
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the_cora9d ago
Have you ever tried painting over a graphite sketch and watched it just turn into a gray mess? It reminds me of this one time a buddy of mine was so excited to start his first acrylic painting, spent forever getting the pencil lines perfect, then layered on the paint and ended up with a muddy disaster. He was so bummed out, thought he ruined the whole thing. I told him he should've just gone over his lines with a thin layer of paint first to lock it all in. Makes you wonder why art supply stores don't slap a big warning label on those pencils, huh?
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