#stretched paper

[shelandsorcery]

I've continued painting these watercolour maps this year - this time by stretching watercolour paper over canvas stretcher bars and painting on that!

I love them, I forgot how satisfying it is to make a fine art ✨object🎶

[portablecity]

Four connected places.

[amywise]

»HOW TO STRETCH WATERCOLOR PAPER«

1. You will need things for this!

a. A clean, smooth, wood board that is a bit larger than your watercolor paper. Solid wood, or plywood will work (avoid fiber/particle board, masonite etc.) The thickness of the board should not be less than a 1/2 inch (as the board itself might warp over time!)

b. A container slightly larger than the width of your paper, filled with a few inches of cold water.

c. Watercolor paper, or any heavy weight paper of your choice.

d. Gummed paper tape. If you don’t know what this is, it’s water-activated tape which means the tape won’t stick until water is applied to the adhesive, just like an envelope! This should be available at most art/craft shops.

e. A medium sized sponge, to activate the tape and absorb any extra water.

f. Scissors!

2. Begin by cutting your strips of tape, one for each side of the paper. You want each strip to be slightly longer than the length and width to make sure the entire sheet will be taped down well.

3. Take your paper and slip it into the water from one end to the other, back and forth about 3 times on each side just enough to moisten the paper evenly. This shouldn’t take longer than 10 seconds.

4. Allow the paper to ring out any extra water before applying it to the board.

5. Lay the soaked paper down on your wood board nice and flat. *These next couple steps should be done pretty quickly as the paper will begin to warp shortly after applying it to the board.

6. Begin to activate your first strip of gum tape by wiping the adhesive side with a wet sponge and tape down the first edge of your paper. Once it’s down run the sponge along the top to make sure the entire strip is taped down. Do this one at a time for each piece of tape. *again, this should be done quickly!

7. Once you have taped down the perimeter of your paper. Run the sponge along the tape just to make sure it’s thoroughly adhered to the board. *You might notice your paper beginning to warp and the tape lifting up slightly, that’s okay! It will flatten out, I promise.

8. Take your sponge and pat the surface of the paper to soak up any extra puddles of water. * don’t drag the sponge this will cause the fibers to fray.

9. Now that you’re finished, place your board flat in a cool dry place and allow the paper to dry for a couple hours until the sheet flattens out entirely.

10. You now have a flat sheet of paper to work with! You may saturate your paper as needed since it won’t become as soaked as it was when you stretched out all the fibers. Keep the paper taped to the board while you’re painting as this will help the sheet continue to dry flat. Once you’re finished working, take a blade and straight edge to each edge of the paper and release it from the board. Behold your completely flat watercolor painting! It’s truly witchcraft.

Love, Amy

[jasialittle]

I trialled stretching the paper prior to journeys on small pieces of wood to try get a flatter piece of paper once it had dried. Many of my other travel drawings were warped and curled from the wet wipes which I wanted to try and tackle. Actually carrying around although small blocks of wood, it was rather impractical and proved problematic. From this I then re-evaluated the original non stretched paper drawings and found I actually like their defects, the warped and curled nature. It gave them a history, narrative and a implication into how they were created. Especially with the almost etching like style, that definitely could not be etching also in its curled nature without the imprint of the plate.

I also began to play around a bit more with scale, trialling using A4 and A1 paper for these drawings. I found A4 still worked quite well but A1 took away some of the intimacy and travel sized nature of the drawing away. Also the A1 drawings had to be done from home from memory which began to move away from the inital idea of travel, becoming instead a memory of travel from inside the home. In ways this kind of begins to bring the work round full circle, combining the home and the travelling together.

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