Successfully stretching pre-primed linen.

[Garth Herrick]

Now let's do the special tip of pulling out and tacking each corner to avoid those dreaded ripples. Put a tack on both sides of each corner. These may need to be removed and reset at the time when the rest of the tacks finally reach the corners from the centers.

With the corners pulled out, begin adding tacks out from each center tack, not more than two tacks out on ech side at a time. Keep flipping to the opposite sides and add the tacks even and orderly on every side.

Pay close attention to the tension on the pliers. If the pliers are pulled too hard, the ripple artifacts will be permanently added along the edge for an unprofessional finish. The pictures below explain this.

[Garth Herrick]

As tacks are added out every inch and a quarter, or so, the linen begins to feel tight as a drum, and any incidental ripples and dents, magically fade away. Yes, I did make those little pucker impressions with my knees as I cut the canvas. I should have been more careful. As you can see though, with each added rank of tacks, these impressions fade away into eventual oblivion with the increasingly even drum-like tensioning.

Upon arriving to the corners, the last two tacks to each corner need to be off-set, due the the miter-lapping of the corner joints. Looking from the face of the canvas, to the corner at the right, place the tacks closer to the face. Conversely, to the corner on the left, place the off-set tacks closer to the back edge.

Pull out those corner temporary tacks very carefully, as needed, because it is time to fold those hospital corners, and correct the corner tensions. Always fold over onto the same side of the corners, due to the mite-lapping of the joints. Fold to the side to your left, with the tacks to be off-set to the back edge. The pictures should explain this.

[Garth Herrick]

Now we are finishing up. The canvas should be flawlessly stretched. One can just about begin painting now! The canvas is evenly primed and just beckoning for some first brushstrokes.

A final step is to remove those temporarary screws, and lightly tack down those remaining canvas overhangs around the back side for the sake of neatness.

Okay we're done. Let's paint!

Hope this has been useful; REMEMBER, wash your hands now!

Garth

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks for posting this -- and I can say from experience that Garth's tip about tacking the corners down right from the start does help eliminate those pesky ripples, especially along the long edges.