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Some people like to make their own canvasses. Therefore this is intended as a “how to do it” guide. What is the canvas made of you may ask? It actually is a substance derived from the flax plants which is called linen. It is quite strong and most of this I would imagine comes from Belgium and Ireland. You can buy it by the meter in art shops.

It may be that you need a certain size for your work and decide to go ahead and make your own. So for this, you will need a few basic items, which I will go on to explain. Although now there are so many ready made ones available in an assortment of shops, it is not really necessary to have to make your own.

Here listed are the materials you will need to complete the job. All important is your stretcher, basically this is four separate pieces of wood you then slot together. Acrylic gesso, a staple gun and staples, hammer, wedges, scissors, a typical fairly small household paintbrush and sufficient canvas. Make sure you only use an Acrylic gesso.

Start by slotting your four pieces of wood together to make the stretcher. Get your canvas and cover the stretcher allowing a good 2 inches overlap on the sides of it. Cut your canvas. Then, on the longest side, find the centre and start stapling the canvas to the wood. Stretch it taut across your frame. Then staple the middle the other side.

Proceed by repeating this on the other two sides. Then, working from the centre outwards, you evenly staple one side and then the other. All you have to do then, is to do exactly the same on the back.

You can staple the sides, and / or, the back, this way. It seems to be a matter of personal choice. Flatten the corners down and staple well. Now take the hammer.

You will need this to gently tap in the support wedges in the corners at the back. When this is completed you need to use the small brush to apply two coats of the acrylic gesso. You need, of course, to wait for the first coat to dry properly before you proceed to the second coat.

Now, if you want to use the ready made canvasses, what should you be looking for? These are usually made of cotton duck or linen, but sometimes they also have synthetics in them. There is often a good assortment of sizes, but it is better to consider what type of texture you need.

Some may appear quite coarse. With these you can usually see the weave through the paint. Good for a rugged painting. The other sort, with a very fine grain, would be very good for work with very fine detailing.

Painting boards usually come readily primed with acrylic. Dual purpose, usable for oils or acrylics. However, paint will flake if you use acrylic paint on an oil based board as these should only be used for oils.

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