I have a drawing on paper that I want to put on my childs wall, How can I trace it to the wall?

Question

I am wanting to put a picture on my child's wall however I am not an artist. I have the picture and now just need to figure out how to get it on to the wall, any suggestions?

Answer 1

I did a stretch as a sign painter and there are basically three ways to skin this cat:

1a. If the drawing you have on paper is the exact size of the drawing as you want it to be on the wall, then get some carbon paper (good luck finding it, it's kind of an out-dated item these days), tape the drawing to the wall, with carbon paper beneath it and trace the artwork onto the wall.

1b. This is essentially the same as above, but using a different means to transfer the tracing. For larger work, where you have artwork on paper the same size as your desired artwork on the wall, get a pounce wheel and some chalk. Sign painters use powdered charcoal which is messy and you don't need that for a one-time job. You could also use chalk, as in what a carpenter uses in a chalk line. It comes in bottles and is cheap. Use the white chalk. The blue and red are very messy and so fine they're hard to clean up. The pounce wheel is a little wheel with points on it's perimeter, kind of like a gear, and this wheel is fitted into a handle. You roll the wheel along the lines of the drawing, then hold the drawing up against the wall and pad it down with the chalk or charcoal and the chalk or charcoal goes through the holes in the paper and is on the wall. You can then further refine this with a pencil and wipe away the chalk or charcoal (especially if you're going to paint fine line, the chalk or the charcoal will interfere). This is an easy technique. Please forgive the long explanation.

2. Take your original artwork and draw a grid on it. Depending on how detailed the drawing is, will determine how fine a grid, but for discussion's sake, have a grid with lines every inch. Now, draw the same grid on your wall, and this works to increase the size of the artwork from what is on paper or can be used to re-create the artwork on the wall in the same size. But basically, you take what is in each grid and re-draw it on the wall. The grid keeps you at least honest to an inch. This technique is used a lot for large mural painting and for billboards, but will work just fine for smaller work too.

3. Get an opaque projector and shine your artwork onto the wall and trace it there with a pencil. This is actually the least reliable way to work, even though it would probably seem like the easiest. The problems with this method are: getting the artwork to project without distortion. No "Keystone effect" from an oblique angle of projection (this is harder to do than it sounds); also, when you're tracing the projected drawing onto the wall, and unless you have a really good projector, you will see that the projection is pretty fuzzy when you're up close and drawing it onto the wall in pencil. The other problem is, and this might sound like a no-brainer, but it definitely happens a lot, the projector gets moved, bumped into, the artwork gets moved in the projector and suddenly you're trying to re-align the thing. It would probably be a little easier if you scanned the drawing and then got ahold of projector to use with a laptop. These projectors are probably easier to find these days than an opaque projector and some of them can project a pretty sharp image. Projecting is still my least favorite way of working, though.

Answer 2

use a projector. that way you can choose the size you want, and then you can just trace it up onto the wall.

Answer 3

scan it into your computer. Then, use a projector to transfer it onto the wall, and traca it. You can even enlarge it if you like

Answer 4

Opaque projector..... can display the image of a book or drawing on the wall.  Then draw straight on the wall.

You can get them from the library in my town, if you have a library card.