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Every artist has a particular type of drawing surface that they prefer. Over time when working with different artist drawing materials you will become comfortable favorable to using a particular type. Bristol Board 300 Series with a smooth drawing surface is my preferred drawing surface. It takes different grades of pencil well, is heavier in weight than regular drawing paper and there's not to much worry of breaking through the sheet with an eraser.

One item to note when beginning to layout your grid pattern is to check the pencil lead grade you are using. If you use a soft lead pencil it will be harder to erase the grid lines later on near completion of the drawing. So use a hard pencil with preferably a lead grade of an 4H and above. For internet viewing a softer lead pencil was used in these images.

Using half inch measured increments for drawing your grid pattern for this art lesson will closely match the available grid pattern set. On the edges of your drawing board begin by making measured lined increments. Continue making these lined increments until all four sides of your drawing board is completed.

The next step is to use a ruler or other straight edge and connect the increments you have made. This creates a grid pattern across your drawing board for you to begin to transfer the outline image in the grid set.

With all those squares on your drawing board to choose from which one is best to begin in? Well pick a square, that is any square but from the rose outline grid set. But lets reflect on two points we need to keep in mind when your transferring or learning to draw the rose image before we start.

First art point is that once you begin drawing, you need to draw in the next adjacent square to the one you just drew in. And there's a pretty good reason for doing so. You will want your illustration to have a smooth flow to it. If you randomly draw in different squares throughout the transfer process you will more than likely find your illustrations outcome to be a jagged one. And then it's rub rub Mr. Eraser.

A second grid drawing point to keep in mind is your selected starting square. This square needs to be the same drawing square on your blank drawing sheet. The Single Rose Pattern outline drawing sheet has a row of numbers across the very top of the page. There is also a column of alpha characters in the first left column. If you begin drawing by using say square G4 on the outline grid pattern, then it should correspond to the G4 square on your blank drawing sheet. If you don't use the same squares you may find the transferred image does not quite fit and it overflows beyond the edges of your blank drawing sheet. And then it's trash can to the rescue and lets start all over again.