Hi my name is Joe Richardson I'm a UAL Short Courses tutor but I'm also an artist
I'm a painter, do all sorts of different things and today I'm going to talk to you about how to
stretch a canvas which is a really fundamental skill as a painter you can buy
stretches from shops but I think it's really important to and really useful to learn how
to do this process yourself because you can work in all sorts of different shapes and
scales and sizes so I'm going to introduce you to some of the materials we'll be using
today so these are stretcher bars they're pre-made you can get them from a variety of
different art shops and they come in lots of different sizes and thicknesses I've got
16 inches by 12 inches today I've got some 12 ounce cot conduct canvas I've got a mallet
but you can also use a hammer with a bit of canvas wrapped around it I've got
some canvas pliers which are a little bit more of a specialist item and they're available
from most art shops as well, I've got a staple gun and and the accompanying Staples
and we've got a pair of scissors and some canvas sealer for when we're sealing our canvas
later on first thing we're going to do is take our Mallet and our stretcher bars and
we're going to arrange them into the shape of the frame so making sure we've got the
shorter sides well we can range yeah shorter sides at the top and bottom and the longer
sides either side and then we're going to use our Mallet now it gets quite loud so you
might want to, you could wear hearing protection if you've got very sensitive ears, so just tapping
them together to get the basic shape of the frame
and then so it's going to start to look a little bit wonky but as you go around
you start to tap it so it's a bit more square, so now you've put together your stretcher bars
next thing we're going to do is to get the canvas to the right size so I've cut down
a slightly larger piece here but it's still a little bit too large now what we're looking
for is about 10 centimeters all around because we're going to be folding this over when we
stretch so we're going to flip it over like this got about 10
about five to ten centimetres there, it's a little bit large here so I'm gonna trim
this down I'm going to make a cut just here because it's going to be a bit excess I don't
I don't want too much canvas for I can hope, I make a little cut you can very easily
you can just tear the canvas like that and now we've got a lovely tense it should be about
the width of the of the actual stretcher bar so you've got that fold there and that's
so the next thing we're going to do is actually start stapling down the canvas so as I say
it's really important that this tilted side of the canvas bar is face down and the
flat side is facing you because we want the canvas to be pulled tight over that over that
ridge which gives us the nice sort of bounce in the canvas which we want so the important
thing to remember when you're doing this is we're going to work with opposites so always
working with opposite sides when we're stretching so you're going to need your staple gun and
your canvas pliers so for the first thing we're going to do is make a staple on on this
far side I'm going to make it on this far side and we want to staple right at this Edge
so right on the edge because we want that to be nice and tight I'm going to work from
this side because you're going to pull the canvas down in towards you so I'm going to
make a staple there and now I'm going to twist this so this, this is a motion I'll be doing
throughout this process constantly twisting the canvas because we're going to work in
opposites because what that does is it creates tension and that's going to give us a really
nice strong taut frame tool and surface to work on so I'm going to staple that right
in the middle again
and now I'm going to work on the sides and at the moment I'm just using my hands because
it's it's quite loose so it's okay I don't need to have too much um tension there but
I also don't want to pull too hard because I want to make sure I've got enough material
on either side to work with into stretch so I'm just sort of gently folding there so I've
done those throughout first three but now on this fourth this fourth then turn this
is where I'm going to use my canvas pliers so the way we use these is there's an end
there's an end here which is going to knock against the wood like that and this side this
flat side in this case with the logo is going to be facing it's going to be facing down
to the table and I'm going to grip the canvas between the pliers so between these ridged
edges and put that in between the tool and I'm going to pull with one hand one hand
on the stretch bar one hand on the canvas and I'm going to sort of fairly firmly
but not too firm because if I pulled too hard that canvas is going to rip it's quite
it's quite tough and it's quite a small frame but it can rip so I'm going to pull it fairly
taut and with my other hand and you know you might if you're working with a parent or a
guardian you might want them to staple and you can you can pull it taut either way
and I'm going to staple there so already I've got I'm starting to get a bit of tension
but as you can see it's quite loose still kind of I still feel the ridges of the
canvas so we want that to be a lot tighter so once we've stapled those four initial corners
we're going to start using our canvas supplies more so again working in opposite so I'm
going to start by just working in the middle of where I've stapled in the middle here
and the far edge so I'm going to really start to pull because I want to really build that
tension between in the canvas I want to keep twisting and you'll start to see these corners
flatten out so already here it's a bit flatter this is a bit more rippled I'm going to keep
working in opposites so I get a really nice taut canvas so I'm starting opposites here
and now I'm going to move over here because I don't want to start working on these sides
yet I want this plane to be a lot, to be tight
so constantly twisting the canvas and turning it around so you're creating that tension
and it doesn't really matter which side you go on but it as long as you follow the
corresponding opposite after so if I start here go here off the start here go there
the edge is, I mean it's starting to look a lot already it's a lot you know starts
to have a more kind of drum like quality so that's that's looking pretty good but I just
want to fill in these these gaps and get it as tight as possible so I'm going to start
to work in between these edges now
so again much tighter now loads loads tighter so what we want to start to do now
is look for any any ripples but this is looking pretty good um but these Corners might be
dipping in a little bit so I'm just going to come along a little bit further
so with this you might want to think about the orientation of your canvas if it's
going to be landscape or if it's going to be portrait, a lot of my paintings are portrait
so I I want the corners to fold over this way and so I'm going to fold this bit this
part in
so there you have it so this is how the back side is looking so it's nice and tight all
the edges and you haven't got any you've barely got any access canvas coming over there so
you're saving your material being really sustainable and on the flip side the side you're going
to paint on it's nice and tight the canvas at the moment is a very porous and absorbent
surface which if we put painting onto it it's going to absorb a lot of the colour and the
pigment which might make our colours quite flat which you might want but if
you want them to be really nice and bright we need to seal the canvas with a
layer which kind of allows colours to sit on top of them and be really nice and bright
and luminous like I've achieved here so we're going to take a little bit of our canvas sealer
and we're going to put it in another cup now you don't need too much because it's
quite a small canvas and you only need to do one layer and so I'm just going to pour
a little bit in there that's that's probably enough you can always add more and just get
the access there I'm just going to pour a little bit of the water from earlier on
only the little Dash and I'm going to mix that together
uniform Strokes side to side, up and down and cover the whole canvas
and you don't need much you don't want to have it too wet because it's going to take
a while to dry in that case
it's kind of like a glue this canvas sealer, it can be used as
a glue
and that will take depending on how warm your room is
could take about 10 to 20 minutes to dry and once it's dry that's
going to be ready to paint can't wait to see what you all make thanks for watching