How to Stretch Watercolor Paper PERFECTLY!

Here’s a demonstration of the watercolor paper stretching technique that I've been using successfully now for 30 years. Some highlights:

Stretching watercolor paper helps keep it from rippling and wrinkling during the painting process.

Stretching also softens the paper and makes it more water-absorbent and receptive to watercolor paint.

The gelatin sizing on unstretched paper can cause paint to bead on the surface, which can produce hard drying lines. Stretching helps remove some of this sizing and prepares the paper for soft, even washes.

The very smoothest Arches watercolor paper is 140 lb. hot press. You can paint on 300 lb. hot press if you want to avoid stretching paper, but it is slightly rougher than 140 lb. hot press paper. And 300 lb. paper will still warp and deform if it gets really wet.

The full-size (22x30-inch) Arches watercolor paper sheets seem to be better quality than the Arches paper you get on a pad or in a block or roll. This is my own observation based on personal experience… I’ve done over 300 watercolor paintings to date, and the best results were always on Arches full-size sheets either stretched on a large drawing board or cut into smaller pieces and stretched separately.

I stretch paper on plywood. Birch or maple is the smoothest, but just about any rigid wood surface will do, as long as it’s thick enough and clean! But don't use a surface that has knots, because these can ooze sap into your paper. If it’s a new piece of wood fresh from the lumber yard or if you have sanded it, wash the working side thoroughly and then dry it with a white paper towel and be sure the paper towel isn’t stained from the wood afterwards. If you notice any brown or yellow staining on the paper towel, wash the board again. You don’t want to contaminate the back of your painting with any residue from the wood.

Before using any interior grade plywood as a drawing board, I paint around the cut edges with acrylic gesso to help prevent moisture from seeping in from the sides and causing the board to eventually de-laminate.

I don't seal or varnish the working surface of my drawing boards, because the outer hardwood layer (ideally maple or birch) is usually resilient enough to tolerate getting wet repeatedly for decades, as long as water does not seep from the sides into the inner plywood layers. Also, I worry that some sealants like water-based polyurethane could adhere to the watercolor paper during the wet stretching process, making the painting hard to remove without damage when it's completed.

I don't recommend using a Masonite drawing board (like the ones with built-in clips that many art students carry around) for stretching watercolor paper, unless you want to watch your drawing board slowly bend itself into the shape of a skateboard ramp. Any board that you can bend or flex with your hands, even a little bit, is probably not rigid enough for stretching paper.

I use 2-inch-wide water-activated Kraft paper tape to attach the wet paper sheet to a plywood drawing board. This will hold the paper securely if you press the tape down firmly and if it's not too wet. Some people use staples in addition to or instead of tape, but I've not found this to be necessary.

When your painting is finished, cut it off the drawing board and trim the Kraft tape off the edges. I don't know of a way to safely remove the Kraft tape except by cutting the paper to remove it, which is why you'll want to leave a decent-sized margin between the Kraft tape and the outside edge of your painting. You can remove any remaining tape stuck to your drawing board by pouring water onto it, letting it soak five minutes or longer, and then scraping it off. If it doesn't come off easily, just repeat the soaking process until the adhesive softens.

And art supply vendors, please stop putting product stickers on the FRONT of Arches watercolor sheets! Even if they peel off, the sticker often leaves residue, and the paper then needs to be trimmed down to remove the damaged section, which is wasteful.

Thanks for watching, and please let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

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