Stretch Your Own Canvas (Canvas Paintings)

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Many artists are painters, using both; oil and acrylic paints with a preference for painting on canvas. Canvas is an age-old substrate used as a painting surface and is traditionally stretched and fastened onto a wooden frame.

This video shows you how to stretch canvas onto a wooden frame (I made the frame in an earlier video) using a very inexpensive, painter’s drop cloth canvas. I purchased a 4’ x 12’ section at Harbor Freight using a 20% off coupon and the cost worked out to about 14 cents per square foot.

Many professional artists prefer to stretch their own canvas, and that gives them the option to select the grade of canvas or other type of cloth covering (such as linen) they desire for the type of painting they have planned. I chose a very inexpensive canvas and it is a bit rougher than most canvas offered at art supply outlets, but such a texture can be compensated for with the type of treatment applied, and in some instances (such as abstract paintings) this type of surface may be desired.

Once the canvas has been stretched onto the frame, it still must be sealed and treated to accept either oil-based paints or acrylic (water based) paints. I’ll show you how I go about this in subsequent videos, and I’ll be using much cheaper, alternative materials to accomplish this.

The example I use in this video is a 9" x 12" canvas, using the wooden frame I made in a previous video. This canvas is small enough, where canvas stretching pliers are not needed.

https://youtu.be/XUvgznsqxdA