Stephen Tashiro
12-02-2009, 12:06 PM
Has any artist and Creeker been able to stretch artists canvas over plywood and prepare it the normal way with gesso ?
(I'm talking about "stretching", i.e. stapling the canvas only at the edges, not gluing the whole canvas down. "Gesso" , pronounced like Jess-oh, is essentially a thick white water based acrylic paint The traditional way to mount canvas is to stretch it over a wooden frame that has a beveled edge. This frame is called a "stretcher", which distinguishes it from a "picture frame". Only the edges of the final painting touch the stretcher. I mount 1/2 inch quarter round moulding on 1"x2" stock with the flat side of moulding facing the outside of the picture to achieve this effect.)
For pastel drawing, I wanted to have a canvas that was supported on its entire surface. So I tried stretching a linen canvas over a 2 ft by 2 ft sheet of 1/2" birch plywood as an experiment. (There was no moulding on the plywood, the canvas lay flat on the sheet.) The canvas looked flat after 1 coat of gesso. After a light sanding and a second coat, it raised up in places. I think this is because the first coat of gesso glued the canvas to the plywood as the canvas shrank. The sanding pulled it up in places.
I unmounted the canvas. I sanded the plywood smooth. I turned the canvas around so the gessoed side faced the plywood and re-stretched it. You can put already gessoed canvas on a stretcher, so I thought this would work. But after two coats of gesso and a light sanding between them the canvas again developed raised spots.
Is there something fundamentally flawed about stretching canvas over plywood or will a different method work?
A traditional internet answer to the question "How do you do this?" is "You don't want to do that?" or "You don't have to do that!". Both those answers may be true in my particular case, but answers about stretching plywood would of interest to artists in general.
Some reasons why are:
I may simply glue to the canvas to the plywood, but "serious" artists want their work to last for generations. When wooden
stretchers deteriorate, a canvas can be removed and remounted on a new stretcher. It is a much worse job to pull up canvas that has been glued to a board. Furthermore, chemicals in glue may attack the canvas.
I may mount canvas on a stretcher and use a temporary piece of plywood set behind it as a support. The disadvantage to this is that you tend to get lines at the edge of the plywood when you draw with pastels
I do not want to draw on un-gessoed canvas because I want to apply water based acrylic paint for color and a water based primer to give the surface the traditional sandpaper finish that is used for pastel drawing. Unstretched canvas would wrinkle. Even the sheets of canvas sold in pads will wrinkle. They are only gessoed on one side and water getting to the back of the sheet shrinks it in places.
(I'm talking about "stretching", i.e. stapling the canvas only at the edges, not gluing the whole canvas down. "Gesso" , pronounced like Jess-oh, is essentially a thick white water based acrylic paint The traditional way to mount canvas is to stretch it over a wooden frame that has a beveled edge. This frame is called a "stretcher", which distinguishes it from a "picture frame". Only the edges of the final painting touch the stretcher. I mount 1/2 inch quarter round moulding on 1"x2" stock with the flat side of moulding facing the outside of the picture to achieve this effect.)
For pastel drawing, I wanted to have a canvas that was supported on its entire surface. So I tried stretching a linen canvas over a 2 ft by 2 ft sheet of 1/2" birch plywood as an experiment. (There was no moulding on the plywood, the canvas lay flat on the sheet.) The canvas looked flat after 1 coat of gesso. After a light sanding and a second coat, it raised up in places. I think this is because the first coat of gesso glued the canvas to the plywood as the canvas shrank. The sanding pulled it up in places.
I unmounted the canvas. I sanded the plywood smooth. I turned the canvas around so the gessoed side faced the plywood and re-stretched it. You can put already gessoed canvas on a stretcher, so I thought this would work. But after two coats of gesso and a light sanding between them the canvas again developed raised spots.
Is there something fundamentally flawed about stretching canvas over plywood or will a different method work?
A traditional internet answer to the question "How do you do this?" is "You don't want to do that?" or "You don't have to do that!". Both those answers may be true in my particular case, but answers about stretching plywood would of interest to artists in general.
Some reasons why are:
I may simply glue to the canvas to the plywood, but "serious" artists want their work to last for generations. When wooden
stretchers deteriorate, a canvas can be removed and remounted on a new stretcher. It is a much worse job to pull up canvas that has been glued to a board. Furthermore, chemicals in glue may attack the canvas.
I may mount canvas on a stretcher and use a temporary piece of plywood set behind it as a support. The disadvantage to this is that you tend to get lines at the edge of the plywood when you draw with pastels
I do not want to draw on un-gessoed canvas because I want to apply water based acrylic paint for color and a water based primer to give the surface the traditional sandpaper finish that is used for pastel drawing. Unstretched canvas would wrinkle. Even the sheets of canvas sold in pads will wrinkle. They are only gessoed on one side and water getting to the back of the sheet shrinks it in places.