WHAT ARE THEY?

Usually used for laminating stuff, laminating pouches have become one of my most recommended art tools for storing and protecting artwork. I couldn’t live without them now.

1. STORE YOUR ARTWORK

These are, for me, the perfect way to store your artwork. They come in A5, A4 and A3 sizes, so most regular sized art is covered. The drawing slides right in and: stays safe, the edges are protected, you can still clearly see the artwork and, instead of having to keep pulling it out of the plastic wallet when you want to have a proper look, all you have to do is peel back the top layer. I personally love it.

2. PROTECT YOUR WORK WHILE STILL WORKING ON IT

Another cool use is while you’re drawing, you can use the laminating pouch to store your drawing in to protect it while it’s sat on your drawing board / table. A drawing that you’re only half finished with, just stick it in a pouch and leave it on your drawing board. This way, your drawing’s protected from dust or random things getting thrown at it lol while still allowing you to see it as you walk past with fresh eyes. If you randomly glance at it and see the mouth needs a little line added here, just go over, peel up the front (I normally stick it to the drawing board with a bit of Scotch Removable Magic Tape and then you can quickly touch it up before putting the cover back down.

3. HELP TO GRID PORTRAIT DRAWINGS

If this wasn’t good enough, you can also use laminating pouches as a way of helping with the grid method for portrait drawing. I have a separate blog post detailing How to Grid Portrait Drawings, but after spending many weeks trying, and failing, to get to grips with the best way to do it, laminating pouches came to the rescue.

The general idea is, you get a marker pen, mark your grids on the laminating pouch and then slide your reference photo into the pouch so that the grid is on top of it. The photo stays in position and you can concentrate on trying to draw what you see. Works perfectly.

“Laminating pouches are so cheap, you can get 25 for £2 in Wilkos and you can also get them in the pound shop for, I think a pound :)“

– Sophie’s Top Tip

“Hands are the Tool of the Painter, The Artist.”

Agnes Varda