Help! Please. Stretcher strips bowing.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Canvas should be streched drum tight only after completely primed and dry.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Recently, Mr. Whitaker emailed me about the subject and gave me the following tips:

• 1. Wrap your linen around your stretcher bars - not too tight - and staple the linen to the bars, about every four inches or so. This is temporary!

• 2. Brush on a coat of acrylic medium - whatever brand you prefer - Winsor&Newton or whatever.

• 3. After that clear coat dries, sand it lightly with fine sandpaper.

• 4. Doesn't hurt to brush on a second coat, and sand again, but not absolutely necessary to apply two coats.

• 5. Brush on two or three coats of acrylic gesso - thinned to the consistency of milk or cream. Sand between coats.

• 6. Notice that traditional canvases primed with flake white are relatively smooth - not too much weave showing. You want to fill your canvas with enough gesso coats to fill a lot of the canvas weave. Do this to personal taste.

• 7. When the canvas is dry, restretch it drum tight. Some folks play a hand-held hair dryer on the back of the canvas while they stretch. A canvas stretched dry will keep from getting slack much better than a canvas full of humidity.

Hope it helps.

[Kimber Scott]

Thank you, all, very much. I won't be back to the studio until Monday. I'm hoping my stretchers haven't popped by then! I stretched the canvas only finger-tight. Lately they seem to have been coming out too loose, so, maybe, I over-compensated on this one. Augh!

When I left the studio the fist coat of gesso was almost dry and the stretchers had bowed in about a quarter-inch, at most, at the center of two sides and a little less than that on the other two. On Monday, I'll unstaple it and then re-stretch it, as suggested. I will let you know whether, or not, the operation was successful.

You know when I read, or otherwise learn, about how to do something, somehow the warnings don't really sink in until I encounter the problems myself. And, so, now I know... long stretcher strips really do need bracer bars. I don't know why I'm so hard-headed.

[Tom Edgerton]

I only stretch pre-primed canvas. I'd be afraid to prime after stretching. And I'm lazy. But it looks to me like Claudemir's post of Mr. Whitaker's method would work just fine.

I get uneasy when I have an unbraced length of more than about 18-20 inches. Crossbars are cheap insurance. Beats restretching.

Best-TE