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! If it’s a new piece of wood fresh from the lumber yard or if you have sanded it, wash it down and then dry it with a paper towel and be sure the paper towel isn’t stained from the wood afterwards. If you notice any brown or yellow staining, 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 over the cut edges with acrylic gesso to help prevent moisture from seeping in and de-laminating the board.

A Masonite drawing board (like the ones with built-in clips that many art students use) is not recommended for stretching watercolor paper, unless you want to watch your drawing board slowly bend itself into a skateboard ramp.

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 tape off the edges. You can remove the remaining tape from your drawing board by soaking it with water and then scraping it off. If it doesn't come off easily, just soak it longer until the adhesive softens.

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.

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

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