Stretching Pre-Primed Canvas

[Sharon Knettell]

Linda,

Alas, you cannot use tacks on this application unless you have three hands, one to grip the canvas, one to place the tacks and one to swing the hammer. You can do it on a smaller canvas but not on a biggie, I have tried. I prefer the tacks myself as they are indeed more elegant.

[Carol Norton]

As I just stretched a canvas with the portrait already on it, I would like to know if anyone else does this regularly. Are there any problems that I should know about before I do it again? Thank you for any and all advice.

[Michele Rushworth]

I would think there would be great potential for distortion in doing that, if there is the least bit of uneven tension in the stretching process.

[Linda Brandon]

Carol, I usually glue mine to panels when I have a "keeper" on unstretched canvas. I varnish after I glue it to the panel, though I'm not sure it would make any difference if you varnished first. I think there's a thread somewhere on the Forum about gluing linen to panels.

[Sharon Knettell]

Carol,

That is a definite NO!

The stretching process creates innumerable fissures in the surface of the paint that could lead to cracking in the future.

[Carol Norton]

Thank you, Sharon. I will NEVER, EVER DO IT AGAIN!!!

[Claudemir Bonfim]

This is a very interesting thread Garth, someday I'll try to use pliers, sometimes I stretch many canvasses on the same day.

I don't use tacks, I use a stapler instead, do guys see any problem about it?

[Stanka Kordic]

Great suggestions everyone, in the nick of time for me. I have a few additional questions:

Can one request the help of a spouse and still remain married after completing the stretching ordeal?

I need to ship said stretched 6'x4' canvas overseas. What is the best way to do this? Remove, ship and restretch?? after all that? OR...Crate??

help.

[Allan Rahbek]

Stanka,

If I vere to trust anyone to do the job of restretching such a finished painting I would search for a person from an art supply shop. Many shops have a person that handle stretching of new canvasses for sale in the shop. Maybe your client could persuade such one to do the job. Or a framer.

Allan

[Juan Martinez]

Originally Posted by Stanka Kordic

Great suggestions everyone, in the nick of time for me. I have a few additional questions:

Can one request the help of a spouse and still remain married after completing the stretching ordeal?

I need to ship said stretched 6'x4' canvas overseas. What is the best way to do this? Remove, ship and restretch?? after all that? OR...Crate??

help.

Stanka, most people I know that have stretched canvases of that size would roll them for shipping, and have a trusted person on the other end, re-stretch them. It is much less expensive to ship, and I assume that is the main reason to do it.

Linda and Garth may recall that Paul Newton had his award winning painting at the PSA conference rolled up to ship from Australia. He rolled it back up and took it on the plane home, too. It was a commission, so it was indeed something that he needed to be careful about. I'm sure it was done on commercially pre-primed acrylic gessoed canvas. Anyway, it wasn't too old.

Oh, yes, Linda, as far as "what is too old" goes, I don't really know. But, I imagine you can get away with a lot, depending on the thickness of paint and on the particular ground. I have a couple of paintings from when I was 12 years old that are rolled up and, when unrolled periodically, do not show any cracks whatsoever. They were done on canvas paper (whatever that is). On the other hand, I have 6 year old pre-primed canvas from Rigacci's in Florence, Italy, on a wide roll that is all cracked and fissured. It is useless. Paintings done on it are very crack prone already. The priming is some sort of glue-chalk concoction, and no matter what the claims of flexibility are by the manufacturer, it isn't.

Juan