Sketching with pencil on canvas is a great way to plan your artwork, but those pencil lines can stubborn and really hard to remove! Paint isn’t always opaque enough to cover these lines so it’s best to remove them before we start painting.
Erasers don’t work on canvas the same as they do on paper. Instead of removing pencil lines an eraser will just smudge and smear it across the canvas – which definitely isn’t what we want!
Whether you want to remove grid lines, or you’ve made a mistake that you need to erase, this simple technique will magically remove those unwanted pencil lines!
Watch the video below to see the exact technique that I use to easily remove pencil lines from canvas:
If you’d rather read the step by step instructions then just have a look below!
Step 1:
Get a small dish and add a drop of dish soap into it. Then, fill the dish with water and mix the soap and water together until you get a layer of bubbles on the top.
The soap is important for removing the pencil from the canvas, but a little goes a long way so don’t add too much.
Step 2:
Cut a sponge up to get a smaller piece of sponge. This will make it easier to target specific pencil lines and marks.
Dip the sponge into your soapy water and squeeze off the excess so that it isn’t too wet, as we don’t want to make the canvas too damp.
Step 3:
Wipe the sponge across the pencil marks that you want to remove on your canvas. I find that it helps to use a bit of pressure and a swirling motion.
Do this across all of the pencil lines that you want to remove.
Step 4:
Then, take a clean and dry cloth or towel and use it to wipe off the water and soap from the canvas.
The towel will soak up the water and you will see that your stubborn pencil lines have magically disappeared!
Step 5:
Continue to use this technique over your whole canvas to remove any pencil lines and marks. Then you will be ready to start painting!
Do you want to learn how to paint colourful animals, pretty landscapes and lots of acrylic painting tips?! If you join my Patreon you will receive all of this and more!
