Carbon Paper??

If i take a peice coated in chinese white and place carbon paper on it then lay a pattern on top of that and trace it will it transfer??

Oh yeah. That's how I did it until about six weeks ago. Another way that's similar (and I think works better) is to turn your drawing over and coat the backside with pencil lead dust (the softer the better) from a sharpener. Rub it in with a finger, then tape it in place on the piece with the chinese white. Then I use a fine burnisher or dull, hard pencil to line it in, and if it's got a lot of lines and will take more than a few turns to rough in, I'll spray it with a little pencil drawing fixative, or I'll scribe it in. Didn't know there was any other way until I found this forum!

The drawbacks are it takes a bit of time, detail transfer is kind of lacking so you have to know how you're going to cut it and you have to make sure it doesn't move while you are tracing it. It helps to really know the design you are transferring. No problem if it's yours, trickier if you're using someone elses. (Please be careful with other people's designs. While it can be a useful exercise to follow in the footsteps of other artists, it is important to remember that they have worked long and hard to perfect their designs and it is not ethical to use them for any purpose other than practice.) It can also be a bit of a challenge to get it positioned absolutely perfectly, especially if the piece has any compound curve to it. With carbon paper you have two pieces of paper to keep from sliding around, doubling the foul language factor.

Also note there are different types of carbon paper, typewriter carbon and pencil carbon. You have to press much harder in the former to get anything to come through.

carbon paper/ china white

lord yes ! but- i did this very lousy technique for years, but now, oh my, now- i only use carbon paper for special stuff like very large tombstones, and large transfers that cant be done with the printer.

There's an "art" version of carbon paper that woodcarvers use called "graphite paper" that can be purchased from DickBlick.com. http://www.dickblick.com/zz129/18/

There is also another kind of carbon paper out there, it is a carbonless, and comes in various colors. You can find it in sewing shops, or craft, quilt stores.

Make your own, it's better

Artists make their own carbon paper.

I use vellum, which is heavy weight tracing paper, preferably around 70 grams or a bit more.
I rub the side of the pencil against the paper using a very soft pencil, such as a 2B. Then I
dip my junk brush in some Bestine (which I can't get here in Tokyo, so I use Zippo lighter
fluid--it works just as well) and disolve the pencil with the lighter fluid until I have a pretty
much perfect coating and let it dry. Because vellum is very strong, getting it wet won't
effect it, and you can control perfectly the degree of hardness you want your carbon
paper to have.

Another slick trick is to use one of those blue pencils that won't show up in photographs.
Follow the same procedure, but using blue pencil. Then you have a sheet of transfer
paper that leaves lines that won't be picked up if you later photograph the piece.

Bill

While I use most other transfer methods now I still use carbon paper from time to time. What I found works best is the old style credit card "swipe" receipts. The carbon in those is very thin and transfers real well. Ask a retailer if they have any of these around.

The very simple method I've been using for transferring drawings.

It's best to work on a light box - easiest to see. Lay the original face down on the lightbox and put a sheet of vellum over it. If you don't have a lightbox it's just twice as much work because you put the vellum over the face up image and trace it onto the vellum.

Either way, you just carefully trace the image on the 'bottom' of the vellum with a soft pencil - I use a 0.3mm mechanical pencil. Try and get nice, dark lines. This pencil image should be the mirror image of the 'real' image. That's why you either put the original face down or trace a 'starting' copy on one side of the vellum so you can see it from the other side.

Put a layer of transfer wax on the piece to be engraved, lay the vellum on it pencil side down and carefully burnish all the lines. The pencil lines will come off of the velllum and stick to the wax. Be careful not to burnish too hard or you'll smear the lines. You can also trace the drawing from the top side - that way you're just 'burnishing' the lines themselves. Use some tape to hold the vellum in place so it won't shift.

This works pretty well but you have to be careful not to disturb the image - touch the wax and you'll wipe the lines right off (trust me on this - I tested that several times). I sometimes go over the transferred design with my scriber to give me a more permanent copy.

If you can't find 'transfer wax' look for something called 'museum wax' or 'rennaisance wax'.

Don't forget the old design room trick if you don't have a light box.
Tape the original and your velum to a window, facing north is the best light.
This also works to reverse something without a copier.
And graphite paper works about like the throw away carbon paper that Rex talked about.
I always saved those carbons for that purpose but found graphite in rolls at the art store.
Best. John B.