Canvas

My table wasn't big enough; I had to use the floor!

It is still a couple weeks away before I can begin the tomato seeds in my greenhouse. Planted too soon they will get too big.  I am playing with my big roll of canvas.  Having a metal shop I have stretched the canvas on metal frames but now, thanks to Craigslist, I have some wooden ones.  I got a dozen wooden frames, from 16" x 20" to 36" x 48" for sixty dollars and I have enough canvas for a lifetime.
   This is so easy that I can't believe that I ever paid for a stretched canvas!  The trick is in the canvass.

Here it is, on one of my steel easels in the process of being gessoed!

Now it is ready, but I am not!

It can't be the pre primed already gessoed type. I have a five foot wide roll of plain white canvas, a little thicker than store bought canvas panels and just the raw canvas.  Basically you just fold the canvas over and from the center of each edge begin stapling.  It doesn't really have to be stretched at all, just hand tight and securely anchored with the staples.  Once you apply a coat of gesso, like any good cotton canvas it will shrink and become tight as a drum.