Pouncing Instructions for Color Theory Studies

Alrighty then.... As I mentioned a few days ago, here are instructions for making pounces - a truly wonderful thing for artists to know.

You will need:

• Your design, simply drawn with a pencil.
• A piece of homosote or a soft piece of pine board to press into with the wheel.
• Powdered Charcoal.
• A piece of loosely woven cloth about a foot square.
• A piece of string about 10 inches.
• A small cup or jar to store your pounce bag in.
• A pounce wheel.
• A Sharpy Marker.

So, the first thing you are going to do is make your pounce bag. Take your cloth and lay it out flat on a piece of scrap paper that you can throw away. If it is too loosely woven, like cheesecloth, you may need two layers, or more depending. You don't want clouds of charcoal poofing through, so experiment a bit.

Dump about a half a cup of the charcoal right in the middle of the cloth and gather the corners and the sides to make a bag and tie it up tight with the string. I use a bow so I can easily untie it to put more charcoal in. This should last you your whole life, except of course for adding more charcoal. Be sure you have a yogurt cup or a suitable container to store it in - no lid necessary.

See picture below:


Next, you'll "pounce" your design with your pounce wheel. Grifhold makes a terrific set of four aluminum wheels. These are great if you work with small designs - I use them often. If you work very large, like I also often do, then you'll need a beefier wheel. I get mine from a wonderful company - Atlas Levy Sewing Machine Co. It was less than five dollars for the wheel and the shipping and it's a really nice one. A great deal can still be found! That is the one pictured below.


Now take your design and place it on your homosote (available in most hardware stores) or pine board. Don't tape it down because you'll be turning it. Now push the wheel into the lines on your drawing and just roll it and follow your pattern. This will poke holes in your paper - and your fingers so be careful. Sometimes it's useful to use the larger wheels on the straighter lines and the smaller ones in the tight curves. Hold your paper up to the light when you think you're finished to see if you've missed anything. If you goof, just cover the holes you don't want to show with masking tape.

Next, take your pounced drawing and place it on your canvas, (lying flat on a table or floor), Do tape it down this time. Now gently tap your pounce bag on your drawing until there is visible charcoal puffing out, but just a bit. Then rub it over the area with the bottom of the bag. Continue patting and rubbing with the bag until you have covered the whole surface. Very carefully lift a corner to be sure you've got just enough of the design visible as dots. When you are finished, lift off the paper with the drawing on it.

Lastly - take a pencil or sharpy marker, depending on what you're doing and carefully go over the lines. Watch that you don't brush off the drawing as you work. For one of my color study pounces I just put masking tape down against the charcoal-dot grid - no pencil involved. After you've traced the whole thing, blow off the charcoal. I find I need to use a good sized stiff brush to get it off a heavily textured canvas, but no big deal.

And - presto - you have your grid all ready. Once you've made it, it's super quick to make a bunch of grids, like the ones you see below to make color studies with. Leaves the time for the fun thinking about color instead of measuring out every time.

Now - I do this all the time and even though I've proof-read, please let me know if I've missed something of if you have any questions -


Happy Painting........ : 0 )