Links 

How Stretch Artists Canvas Painting Art Books Tips Paint Oip Oil Arts Crafts

1. After determining the required canvas size, for example, 24" x 36", select the corresponding sizes of stretcher strips and make up a frame by fitting together the mitered ends.
2. Check the squareness of the frame by measuring across the diagonal corners fo that both measurements are equal. If bracing is desired for a larger size, attach snugly with provision for later expansion.
3. Spread the canvas on a clean flat surface, primed side down. Position the frame for best material yield, allowing from 1 1/2" to2" excess for gripping and stretching, depending on the type of stretcher frame. Cut out canvas segment.
4. Fold one side of the canvas over a short end of the frame, and tack at the center of the strip, allowing for 1 1/2" - 2" excess.
5. Reverse to the opposite side, using canvas pliers to grip the canvas in the left hand (for a right-handed person) with the frame resting in an upright position, primed surface facing you.
6. With a tight grip on the pliers, pull firmly until a straight crease is formed running from the pliers to the tacked end. With your right thumb, insert the tack while maintaining plier tension at the top of the crease, and tap in. A magnetic-head tack hammer will allow you to pick up the tack with one hand and insert it faster, using the other side of the hammer to tap in. When using a staple gun instead of tacks-and-hammer, the left hand pliers function is unchanged, and the stapling method replaces tacking.
7. Move to an adjacent side and follow the same procedure, pulling firmly and tacking canvas to the frame at the center, creating first a triangle crease and then a diamond crease in the canvas with the fourth tack, at the opposite long side. Then temporarily tack canvas at each corner on short side only. Work out from center of long side.
8. Move the pliers about 2 inches to one side, pull tightly, and tack to the frame. Repeat for several more inches in both directions from the center, then reverse to the opposite side and continue the process. Pull out tacks from the corners of short side and tack or staple from the center to the edges. Repeat the same procedure on one adjacent side and then its opposite. Depending upon the size of the canvas, and entire side can be tacked at one time, or for larger sizes, the canvas should be rotated several times before it is completely stretched. A linen primed canvs, particularly an oil-primed linen, will normally require more closely spaced tacks as there is limited stretch to the fabric.
9. Leaving about 2 inches untacked at both ends of the inner sides, tuck in the corners as illustrated and tack through the folded canvas into the frame with exerting finger tension.
10. Fold the excess canvas to the back of the frame and tape or tack, to allow for removal and remounting in the future. If the canvas is trimmed flush with the back of the frame it will be difficult to remount properly without reducing the size of the frame.
11. Avoid using pegs to take out wrinkles as this may throw the frame out of square, damage the canvas, or enlarge the stretcher frame so that it may not fit a standard picture frame. Restretch the wrinkled portion instead. The use of pegs should be confined to its proper purpose of mounting raw canvas for priming on the stretcher frame, after the initial sizing has dried.
12. On acrylic primed canvas only, small indentations and ripples may be flattened out by dampening only the affected area with a damp sponge and allowing it to shrink back to its original shape. However, always use care not to saturate the canvas, and allow it to dry completely in a well ventilated area. Large wrinkles should be removed by restretching the affected area, or the entire canvas if necessary. It is relatively easier to stretch raw canvas than primed, but considerable skill is required to prime the canvas with a quality ground. It is also easier to stretch primed cotton and Polyflax canvas than primed linen canvas, as the linen fibers do not have much stretch. Oil primed (and in particular; double primed) canvas requires the most care in stretching, as there is practically no stretch, and it is not at all unusual to have to remove some tacks at wrinkled areas, Restretch and re-tack, before getting the canvas perfect.
DO NOT wet back of oil primed canvases.

SHOCK AND AWE: Two South Florida museums showcase women painters MiamiHerald.com By John Coppola Two current museum exhibitions boldly proclaim that despite the lure of trendy styles and new media, some contemporary artists continue to cherish the human figure and the tactile pleasures of oil paint. Dana Schutz: If the Face Had ...

Jonathan Franzen is wrong: the digital age is making us smarter The Guardian Ink on paper is no more a guarantor of good government than oil paint on canvas. So we need to tamp it down a bit: the e-reader is not the barbarian at the gate; governments become corrupt and civil society is lost for other reasons. and more »

The Edinburgh Journal

Kirsty Wither: New Paintings The Edinburgh Journal Produced like the still life in oil paint, the share the same application technique, but they seem to evoke a greater emotional response, transcending the viewer to the scene portrayed. Kirsty Wither stated that her 'paintings are as much about the ...

Be Yourself. It Could Save Your Life. Big Think (blog) In the wee hours of a Saturday morning, a friend and I crept up to the building's roof and demolished the damn thing with oil-paint-filled balloons. This was an (admittedly illegal) form of protest against the inescapability of in-your-face marketing ...

Spotlight on ... Rush-Henrietta graduate Jessica Hamilton Henrietta Post I primarily work in oil paint, but I also love to play with digital and 3D art. My art usually focuses on people/portraiture and shows realistic forms with abstract color and space. 2) How would you describe yourself as an artist?

Hockney fans help app to top spot The Press Association Inspire Pro - Paint, Draw & Sketch simulates wet oil paint on a canvas and offers users five kinds of brushes to create their own masterpieces. The app has been heavily discounted - down from £5.49 to 69p - to celebrate Yorkshire painter Hockney's new ... and more »

My special connection with art Fiji Times Her affinity to drawing started from a very young age and despite her commitments to her studies, social work and career, Kelerayani Gavidi is still very much in love with her art, just like oil paint on a canvas. It is obvious the connection the ...

Wall Street Journal

Roommate Not Wanted Wall Street Journal Mr. Wall, trained in art history, was actually after a retro effect: a luminosity reminiscent of oil paint. 'The Crooked Path' (Ludion, 255 pages, $50) assembles examples from the past 30 years, many of which are elaborately staged—this one, ...

Manawatu Diary - February 2-8 Manawatu Standard This six-week course covers the basics of landscape painting: composition, proportion, perspective, basic oil paint technique, colour theory and how to tackle the production aspect of painting. What makes a scene worth depicting?

Asheville Children's Book Review column recommends Oliver Jeffers' new picture ... Asheville Citizen-Times He confides that there is a smear of oil paint on one page, “but that might have been an accident.” So controlled is Jeffers' use of the mixed media that the effect is beautifully cohesive and serene. The conversations between the girl and the old man ...

Common Misspellings include accros, acrosss, acrost, accross alowing alsot, aslo alwasy, alwyas adn, anbd attatch, attatch bakc, bcak bedore, befoer, befor bu completelyl correponding, correposding, corrisponding determinining doulbe eahc exemple, exmaple exapansion firt, firts formant, fomed, fromed fouth fomr, frome fucntion, funtion ahev, ahve, haev, hvae, hvea howver inital, intial instade inot it's larg lefted maintinaing amke, mkae, mkea moreso, mroe, omre neccesary, neccessary, neccessary, necesary, nessecary nto, onot lonly, onyl oposite orginal, origional nother, otehr particuarly, particularily, particulary positon, possition, postion practially, practicaly, practicly procedger, proceedure proccess, proces propper propperly perphas relutively, relativly, realitvely, relitavely recquired requred runing, runnung smae severeal shoudl, shoudln, sould sieze siezing sose smoe, soem spead, spreaded, srpead, spred sqaure surfce tact tkae temperarily, tepmorarily tahn, thna taht, tath, thast, thgat, thta, thyat hten, tghe, ther, thge, tjhe thne their, ther htis, thsi, tihs throught, thru tiem, timne, tiome toghether untill uopn, apon uise useing vell wehn, whn hwile iwll, wille, wiull owrk, wokr, wrok yeild pitcher pic pictrue ,
 Rosebud Art  Introduction to Oil Painting  Range of Paints  Feeling the Paint  Oil Paint Drying Time  Testing Water Color Paper  Ideal Watercolor Brush Qualities.  Standard Watercolor Brush Kit  How to Stretch Artists' Canvas  Basic Pastel Techniques  Color Pencil Tips  Paints  Crayon Stain Removal Tips  Buying Coloring Books  Tie-Dye Tips  How to Draw With Charcoal