Good uses for tracing paper?

[Mechanizoid]

Hello. Recently I got my hands on a Staedtler Sketch Paper roll- http://www.amazon.com/Sketch-Paper-Roll-...B00016XMJE. Anyway, I opened it today to check it out. I found that is basically tracing paper. It works just as advertised and takes pens and even markers without bleedthrough. I was surprised, as it is so thin. Seems like fine tracing paper.

I got this stuff 'cause I wanted some not-to-special paper that I could do some more throwaway stuff on (ellipse practice, basic forms, etc.). Should work fine for that, but I'm wondering what else I can do with it. I'm not planning on tracing, but I know some artists use tracing paper. So what do you guys suggest doing with tracing paper? Other than drawing a whole bunch of ellipses so I don't waste my sketchbook paper? I have fifty yards of the stuff now, LOL.

[Eyliana]

I used it as a draw over for anatomy practice. Print out a portrait or a human figure and lay the tracing paper on top of it and try to draw the skeleton/skull or muscles.

Another way you could use it to make iterations. Take a sketch/illustration as a base and use the tracing paper to make small adjustment. Easy way to try a few things and see if it matches with the whole picture without having to draw it over and over again.

It's like the traditional use of layers in photoshop :P

[Mechanizoid]

Hey Eyliana, thanks for the great tips! :) Those both sound like good uses of this paper, I'll try them.

It's like the traditional use of layers in photoshop :P

It's funny, I learned PS before I started drawing so I tend to think of my traditional tools in terms of their PS equivalent, rather than the other way around! My sketchbooks and paper are my canvas, my pencils and pens are my brush tool (as are my erasers), and now tracing paper is my layers. ^^ LOL

One use I already like for the tracing paper is practicing ellipses. After I have drawing a bunch and found their minor axis, I fold the paper down the minor axis and check to see if the two halves match. Like Scott Robertson does here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaZmwHU7vZo

[meat]

Could try doing something like this --->