Fitting the drawing on the mural (Tutorial)

Drawing on paper is simple, the whole work is completely within the field of vision of our eyes. It is easy to see the proportions of the figures and the dynamics of the composition. The problems arise when you want to transfer this sketch to the wall and the centimetres become metres. Being so close to the wall and not having a complete view of the whole, it is easy to lose the proportions and a good design and a great drawing becomes a disaster. The other problem that tends to occur when sketches are transferred to definitive pieces of larger dimensions is that "freshness" is lost. There are sketches that the fluidity of the stroke and the brushstrokes has given them an imprint and a character that is then lost when they are transferred to a larger scale. For this second problem, the only solution is the artist's hand and sensitivity, and also knowing how to move away from the sketch when it has fulfilled its function as a "guide" and focus the effort on finishing the mural piece.

Here we are going to focus on solutions to tackle the first problem, fitting the design onto the wall without losing the proportions. There are artists who have a sense of space that means they don't have this problem, even when tackling huge sizes, but it is not the usual thing to do. It is not even recommended. Artists throughout history have used the technology available to them to carry out their work. Lenses, mirrors and the use of the camera obscura revolutionised Baroque and Flemish painting and it is no less of a revolution in its quality, on the contrary. Very interesting in this respect is David Hockney's book "The Secret Knowledge" link to the video.

The three most common ways to fit a design on a wall are: the grid, the projection and the doodle stencil.

The grid is widely used and well known. It involves placing a grid of vertical and horizontal lines over the drawing or design to be copied. The same grid is then drawn on the wall in proportion to the desired size. The cutting of the lines of the drawing with the lines of the drawing gives us the references to fit the drawing. Some artists do not draw the entire stencil on the wall and only draw the crosses of the vertical and horizontal lines. It is a bit more difficult, but it solves the problem that even though the lines are covered with paint, they become transparent.

Projection is another way to solve fitting problems quickly and cleanly. There is not much to say, the image is projected on the wall and the contour lines of the drawing and other lines that we can consider referential to execute the piece, areas where the shadows or hair directions go, for example, are traced. As you can see in the video above, taking advantage of the projection we have marked the general lines of the drawing and the work is extremely clean. With this procedure we simply have to adjust the projection so as not to make "keystone" link to explanatory video and to have the necessary dark conditions to be able to project. In the near future, as soon as they become cheaper, it will be very common to project with laser because the lines are more precise and it can be done with more ambient light than with a conventional projector.

The doodle stencil is a widely used method that is similar in its operation to the grid. The procedure consists of filling the surface of the wall to be painted with random letters and numbers until the entire surface of the wall to be painted is covered. Then you take a photograph with your mobile phone or tablet and with a photo retouching app that allows you to superimpose images, we use Google's Snapseed.

We transparent the photograph of the wall with the doodle template over the image of the design that we also have as a photograph on the device. The result gives us references of where we have to draw the lines of our design. In the example photo they are drawn in orange. For example "The line of the cheek goes between the drawing of a heart and then at the top it brushes with a number two and ends where there is an emoji face drawn". It is important that the colour of the drawings in the template contrasts enough to be able to see them well in the app, and not too much so that they are difficult to cover and become transparent. The latter can be solved by covering the colour planes with a roller, once the contours of our design have been marked on the wall.