When artists are working out their ideas, sometimes they need to do many sketches. Planning out a drawing or painting may sometimes need correcting until they end up with their finished design. Newsprint is a thin paper that is cheap and easy to use for simple practice drawing for dry media such as pencil, charcoal, pastels and simple marker line drawings. The smooth surface makes it easy for the media to glide across. The paper comes in both large rolls as well sheets and drawing pads of various sizes.
I use newsprint for many things in my studio. Life drawing and sketching are both a great way to use the large newsprint pad. When doing upright drawing studies, newsprint is great for working on proportions at a quick pace. Artists tend to go through a lot of paper when working quickly on life studies, gesture drawing and other quick line drawing practices. This paper is a great tool to work out your sketches without using your more expensive papers.
Newsprint is also great for drawings that need to be transferred. When I am working on a design for a large canvas or transferring graphics onto a sign, I sometimes use newsprint. You can transfer a drawing onto the surface by coloring onto the back of the paper with a dark graphite pencil and then drawing over the design with a pen to press the image onto the desired surface. You can also do this technique with graphite transfer paper if you have any on hand.
Newsprint is also a nice cheap paper to use for things such as masking off an area when you are painting. I use it on items that require spray paint. The large rolls also come in handy for covering and protecting large tables for art class. When working with paper mache’, I prefer to use this material instead of using printed newspaper. This way, there is no black ink showing through when you paint it. This paper comes in handy in so many ways. Be sure to keep your studio stocked with newsprint because you never know when you will need it for any future project planning.
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