How to Stretch Paper

You may be thinking: How hard can it be to stretch paper? Hold on to each end of the paper and pull! Ha ha ha!  Well, anyway. Paper stretching is really usefull for all kinds of drawings and paintings. Anything where you would have to wet the paper! This technique keeps the paper from warping and getting all bubbled.

You will need:

Scissors

Stapler (the one I used was one finger 15 page power)

Sponge

Container for water

Butcher's tape

 

You will also need:

A plywood board big enough for your paper

The paper you are stretching

Get your sponge wet (Not drenched, but not squeezed dry. Sort of in between the two.) Then run it back and forth across the paper, making sure to not leave any dry patches. The edges often get missed, so watch out for that. And then do it the opposite way. It you ran the sponge along the paper vertically, then this time do it horizontally. Let the water absorb for a couple of minutes. Then flip it over and repeat!

Next get out the butcher's tape (I cut mine in half length wise) and run the wet sponge over it. This will get the glue on the tape working. Then just stick it down over the edge of the paper, with about 1/2 a inch overlapping the paper. Make sure you press it down really well, starting at one end and working your way to the other end.

Repeat on all four sides.

Staple down the edges to make sure they stay where they are suppose to. I normaly use one on each corner, then three or four on the long side, and two or three on the short side.

This one I stapled like crazy because this was the first time I have ever used that expensive of paper. $2.99 a sheet!! And that was the cheapest type of Arches I could find. Strangely enough, the cream Arches paper was cheaper than the white Arches paper. You would think that it would be cheaper to not color it cream, and just leave it white. Anyway, here I am rambling on again :p 

Close up of the staples!

Ta da! The little bubbles should smooth out when it drys. What happens is, when the paper is wet it swells and gets bigger. Then you tape it down and as it drys it shrinks again. When it is all dry the paper will be stretched taut. Thus the reason why it is called stretching paper! I would try this out on cheaper paper like Mayfair untill you get the hang of it. It took me a while to get it down pat. But this is so usefull, it is well worth it!

Here is the box study I did on it. I used a ink wash in case you were wondering :)

Oh, and you will want to clean off your board before you use it again. Just wet the tape with the sponge, and let it soak for a bit. Now the glue should be moist, so you can just pull the tape off! Some bits almost always stick, so just get it nice and wet, then use a straight edge to scrape it off (I used a old bank card). Then I wash it down with the sponge to remove the glue residue. Because, a couple of times I didn't get all the glue off, so it glued my paper to the board (just around the edges). It was nothing that major, but now I make sure to wash the glue off.