• Scissors
• Hammer
• Heavy Duty Staple Gun
• Canvas Clamp
• Extra staples
• Canvas
• Stretcher Bars or Wood Strips: Stretcher bars can be purchased at art stores, with 3/4 inch profile or 1.5 inch profile. Wood Strips can be bought from the hardware store or any lumber supply store, but you need to cut them at 45 degree angles at the length you want. Wood strips are cheaper but require a little more labor. The advantage to being in control of your own stretcher bars is that you can also make very deep profile canvases if you like!
• Gesso and gesso brush
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For wooden strips from the hardware store: more info on this later, but you would need to piece the bars together differently than bars from the art store.
The first staple: Does not matter where you insert it, I have heard about people stapling the corners first but I generally start from the middle of the longest side.
Sometimes the staples do not shoot all the way into the wood so I would hammer it in.
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For small canvases you can just use your bare hands, but for larger canvases, the clamp is handy. The picture shows how I use it.
One way I have discovered to get super-tight canvases is to push the bars away with your feet while pulling the canvas towards you after the first staple is down (as shown in the photo). So make sure there is enough floor space especially for huge canvases. Then I would hold down the bars with my feet and fold the canvas over the bar with one hand, and take my other hand to staple.
This is how to do it all by yourself; of course if there is another body present, you can get that person to help staple or stretch or hand you tools... and make him/her into your slave ha ha!
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I alternate sides until only the corners are left. Then I tuck in the corners (for further details on corners scroll down down down) and voila! Canvas! Wonderful melodious drum sound from the tightness of it! Can you hear it?
:->
If you have a hairy pet, or lots of lint on your floor a lint roller can pick up all the bits and pieces so they don't annoy you when you gesso... or you can leave them on for interesting texture.
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If you plan to paint with acrylic paint on your canvas, 2 coats may not be needed, but the surface (I find) is nicer after the second coat.
If you are using oil paints, you should have 2-3 coats. What happens when there is not enough gesso on the canvas is that the oil paint cannot bind effectively to the cloth. You also get gross pigment seeping through the other side and the colors are not as brilliant when this happens.
If you are staining, then skip gesso-ing, obviously...
That's it! Start your masterpiece!
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The extra information below may be useful. I talk a little about gesso choices and how to cut your own stretcher bars, instead of purchasing bars from the art store.
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I have two types: Studio Series Acrylic Gesso and Professional Acrylic Gesso
Studio Series: This is cheaper than the professional, but it is runnier and I use it up quicker.
Professional: This gesso is thick! Like greek yogurt thick- I can turn my palette knife full of this stuff upside down and it will not budge. It is more expensive on the other hand, but the benefit is that I don't use it up so quickly because I can thin it down with water if I need...
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Anyway, if you can only rely on yourself for the cutting, then the best tool for specific angles to your cuts is a miter saw. Make sure you have safety goggles just in case wood shoots up at your face and pops your eyeball.
If your wood strip has knots in it, be extra careful because cutting through a knot has a high chance of splintering the wood at that area.
If you have sensitive ears, ear plugs would be good too.
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Sanding down sharp edges on your wood strips may lessen the chances of your canvas ripping, especially if you have old canvas and it is a little dry.
If you bought stretcher bars from the art store, you do not have to do anything... just assemble it and start stretching the canvas!
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Stretcher bars bought from the art store have a raised outer ridge as shown in the picture. For those who buy their own wood from the hardware store, it is good to take note... sometimes the bars are shaped wonky and are thicker at different sides. If this is the case with your wood, try to position the strips so that the thinner sides are inward.
Buying wood strips and cutting them yourself also means that you need to piece them together some way. I just use wood glue. The stretcher bars from the store just fit together- no gluing, sanding, or whatever needed.
This is also handy to know: Wood epoxy paste can fill in cracks and gaps in wood. It hardens over night and can be sanded down. Unlike some other epoxys, it does not have that chemical scent to it, and it is colored a light tan color to match a general wood tone. Very useful when building frames for finished paintings :-)
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Corner Details: Fold pretty, clean and crease-less corners!
Sloppy canvas sides are not very nice.
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Make a cut to the side with the last staple that is closest to the corner. This is the flap to be tucked under the adjacent flap. Do NOT cut all the way to the front corner, just about midway will do.
Next snip off the other side to the same point as the first cut, making sure that this flap is a bit longer than the other flap.
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Fold in the smaller flap first. Roll the longer flap under itself and pull it over the small flap.
Staple.
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Fill in the corner with a few layers of gesso to smooth out the crease line. Sand paper helps to even out any bumps.
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Hope that was helpful. Feel free to contact me for questions or comments.
