Make your own canvas

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To create an own canvas is easier than you might think – if you use the right tools. Even today it is worthwhile to stick to methods practiced since centuries. This post shows (in text and with videos) how to make a canvas for outstanding custom canvas wall art.

There are many sources of errors during the process, and unfortunately you cannot be sure any more to get good quality if you buy a canvas – in spite of the higher price. That means: if you make the stretching frame and the canvas for yourself you can get good quality for a good price. It is worthwhile to prepare more than one canvas at a time. If you buy a canvas you can focus on painting earlier – provided you know how a good canvas looks like.

This process of how to make your own canvas is derived from the book “The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting” by Max Doerner. It is practiced a lot and for all sizes of canvas, large and small once. Alternatively, you can also refer to the works of Kurt Wehrte:

Three steps are required:

1. How to make a stretcher frame for fabric?
2. Attaching fabric to stretcher bars
3. How to prepare a canvas for painting?

1, How to make a stretcher frame for fabric

Even if the heading suggests a stretcher bar frame could be self-made, buy them ready made, buy a canvas stretcher frame kit. You still have to assemble them:

• Stretcher frames are mostly made of wood (at least the good quality) and wood can go out of shape. For wood stretcher frames two wooden bars are used and glued in opposite direction to make sure it stays in shape
• Wooden elements in the stretcher bars ensure that the frame can be stretched by driving wooden wedges in and enlarge the stretching frame – depending on humidity the fabric tends to loosen
• A gap between the canvas and the wooden stretcher bar ensures, that the wood stretcher bars does not push through the fabric while painting
• The process shown works for any size of canvases – from very small ones to large dimensions, for all kinds of fabric, and it can be adapted to personal needs

Check the internet or wholesale to buy stretcher bar frame kits. It is important to make sure that you got all parts, including extension bars and wedges, and the the stretching bars are straight.

This is how to make a stretcher frame:

In brief:

• Check that stretching bars are straight buy looking along them as if you would aim on something
• Verify the correct assembly by measuring the diagonals – they have to have the same length (2-3 millimeters difference are OK). Do not use protractors or angle meters
• The wooden wedges are not needed initially – this is only used to re-stretch the material
• For large formats double ot triple strecthing bar frames are screwed together. Potentially the gap to the canvas must be enlarged with a planer
• Also, large formats must be supported with extension bars. Check the notches in a stretching bar to calculate how many extension bars you need.

2, Attaching fabric to stretcher bars

In order to attach fabric to a stretcher bar frame, you need to have fabric. Mainly, two types are used:

• Cotton is the cheaper material. Use cotton only with smaller sizes and gentle brush strokes. If the canvas art work is larger, if you tend to paint with power or if the canvas should be easier to transport, use linen.
• Linen is the original material used in middle age. Initially painters used wood or simply walls, but both had disadvantages – wood was expensive, lost its form depending on the paint, and plaster, the grounding of frescos, only could be used once and could not be transported.

Also note the following differences:

1. Small spaces between the fibers look better, but are more costly. Therefore this fabric is used for portraits. Large gaps could be compensated by the grounding (step 3)
2. The thickness and regularity of the fibers: the thicker a fiber, the stronger it typically is and the less obvious are deviations. Rough-textured fabric must match the subject painted
3. Primed versus not primed: Linen or cotton which is already primed promise less work. This holds true for small formats, but stretching large primed fabric require a lot of physical force which is prone to errors

Check this video to see how you attach none primed fabric, or continue reading:

In short:

1. Cut the fabric along the fibers and leave enough length to wrap it around the attach it on the backside of the stretching bar frame
2. Make sure the edges of the fabric are parallel to the fibers by removing fibers until all the side is covered by only on fiber
3. Position the stretching bar frame in the middle of the fabric and put something beneath in order to not stretch it too much
4. Attach the fabric using a stapler. First make sure that the position of the canvas matches on all sides, than attach the sides one after another by changing the sides. Do not stretch in this step – especially for linen you have to leave enough air, since the canvas will be bent otherwise.
5. Work on the corners in the last step. Make sure you match the orientation correctly: the fold must always be at the top and on the bottom of the canvas

Stretching canvas prints: The process differs, if you want to attach primed fabric or prints instead. You have to stretch as much as you can without wrinkles. There are special stretcher pincers available, but I do not find them very helpful. Stapling the fabric is essentially the same. If you rely on the wooden wedges to stretch the fabric or the print, then you reduce the possibility to re-stretch later.

3, How to prepare a canvas for painting

The largest enigma for many newbies to custom canvas wall art is stretching the fabric since it is not done while attaching it. In the end it is easy, since glue is doing the work. Fabric should be glued in order to prevent the primer to penetrate the fibers. This is supposed to increase the resistance of the fibers.

Use the best natural glue mankind knows: skin glue (sometimes also rabbit glue), which is produced by cooking the rests of small animals – like gelatin, only that the animals are smaller.

Priming the canvas happens later. In middle age “Halbkreidegründe” (literally half chalk primer) has been used. Today it is better to use typical material such as elastic outside wall paint.

To make your own canvas do the following:

At last:

1. Solve the glue granulate in warm water, keep the water warm and stir from time to time. This will take about 3-4 hours
2. Thin the glue by adding water until it is fluid and paint the fabric with it. Work from inside out and make sure the wooden stretching bars do not become apparent. Apply the glue with a brush creating spume. It is said to help closing the gaps in the weaving. Again, this depends on your fabric.
3. If the glue gets dry before you are done – add more water or warm it
4. If the glue is dry, grind the canvas with fine sandpaper. Check if enough glue has been applied – typically you only need to do this once
5. Thin the primer and paint the canvas as done with the glue
6. If the primer is dry, grind the canvas with fine sandpaper. Check if enough primer has been applied: if you look through it against the light you see whether many spaces have been left in the fabric. If this is not the case and if the color of the primer is consistent through the canvas you are done. If not repeat step five

Tips:

• I did not find a rule for measuring the amount of glue you need to prepare. Do not use too much, and add water if you think it is not enough. The glue only lasts a couple of days before it starts to smell
• You could use grinding machines for large formats, but you have to feel how to apply it
• You could also paint without primer. You can also use a colored grinder. Some middle age masters used black primers in order to paint shadows quicker.

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Have fun!