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My stretched watercolour paper sticks to my board
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Message
Posted
<div>I sometimes stretch my watercolour paper using brown gummed tape. Sometimes when I come to remove the completed painting I find that the paper is struck to the board, usually in one or two corners (never in the centre), but it's very firmly adhered. I have several boards, some rougher and some smoother and I haven't noticed that paper sticks more to one kind than the other. I always clean the boards very carefully after I've removed a painting to make sure that no gum remains on the board which might cause the paper to stick down the next time I stretch it. I haven't noticed that one kind of paper is better or worse than another, either. I use many brands of paper and I haven't noticed any pattern.
Does anyone have any advice or tips about this? The most annoying part is that, of course, I don't know that the paper has stuck on until I've finished the painting and I'm trying to get it off! It's a teeny bit stressful....
Help!
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Posted
It will stick - if you use gummed paper it sticks to the paper, and to the board. What you then do is cut the painting free of the board with a craft knife, or you could just place a blade under a looser strip of the paper, enabling you to lift painting and paper, or most of it, away, then trim the gummed paper stuck to your painting (you just wash the gummed paper off the board with warm water and sponge, most of it peels away) and that will leave you with a strip of gummed paper round your watercolour. Trying to pull this off could be extremely dangerous: you're likely to rip the surface off your painting - leave it there, the mount will cover it.
Some people use masking tape on thicker papers, more to hold the paper in place than anything else - it won't help to stretch the paper because it lifts; or a device called a paper stretcher, which works on the cheaper (lighter) grades of paper but not on the heavy duty stuff. Others buy paper which fits the board more or less, and secure it with bulldog clips, adjusting them as the paper shrinks or buckles.
But there's no gum strip paper I'm aware of which won't carry on sticking once it's stuck, though I have a vague memory of a tape that was recommended by Syd Edward - this may be in the watercolour section of the forum, where perhaps you might post other contributions on this if you possibly could; makes it easier to follow.
Posted
Of course gummed paper will stick!, that's what it's meant to do but I must confess that scraping a bit of tape off a board has never caused me any stress and I've stretched probably thousands of pieces of watercolour paper over the years.
Simple remedy: buy a decent paper stretcher the Keba Artmate is the best on the market but is expensive but they do work well, I have one myself. OR start using 300lb weight paper, that doesn't need stretching and all your problems will be solved.
Posted
https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/item-artists-tape.htm
This is the tape that was referred to. Whether it'll be of any use in stretching paper I don't know, because I've never tried it.
If this is giving you grief however - then yes, I'm with Alan. Buy heavier paper, or a paper stretcher; the Ken Bromley stretcher is one such, and that may be the Keba to which Alan refers, but I've never tried that either. I don't mind stretching paper with gum-strip, and yes I expect it to stick: it wouldn't be of any use if it didn't....
Posted
The Keba paper stretcher is NOT the same as the Ken Bromley one, it's superbly crafted in Sweden and really works well, the reports on the KB one are not good, issues with the strips that hold the paper in place along grooves in the side of the board.,etc etc. The Keba employs a better principal altogether and will last for years, well worth the investment, check out the design on Google, I think I bought mine from Jackson's but that was ten years ago.
Posted
I think Deirdre is meaning that the back of the actual watercolour paper sticks to the board, I've had that problem too - I'm sure she realises that the gummed paper will stick! I presume it's the sizing but I don't know, I've always managed to ease the corners free without damaging the painting, but it's very annoying. I've got a Ken Bromley paper stretcher and have found the same problem with that to a certain extent.
Posted
I'll look out for the Keba stretcher, though - probably won't be buying it as the lightest weight of paper I use is 140lb, and I'm promising myself a move upwards to a heavier weight next time I buy some.
As to sticking on the board - this is dry paper, on a wooden block? I've never known that to happen and don't understand why it would.... there's nothing to actually stick to or with, surely? Sizing - well, a heavily sized paper might be a bit tacky I suppose, but if it were too heavily sized it'd be like painting on sticky-backed plastic, I'd have thought. If it was wet, then dried out - I suppose it could stick a bit; but I'm mystified, here at the Batcave. Though I've just re-read Deidre's post, and I do think you're (Janet and Marjorie) right - it's the corners of the paper where it's sticking, i.e. where the gummed paper came into direct contact with it: so the gum has presumably leached under the paper there and made the back sticky - why and how would be the question. I shall now stop typing and think for a minute or two - you'll hear the grinding of gears.
Right; well - a) my board is a rough bit of heavy plywood, so doesn't have a high-gloss surface or a particularly smooth one; that may limit its tendency for paper to stick to it; when I wet the paper, I either soak it in a sink/bath, and lay it on the board when I've allowed the excess to drip off; or, sometimes, I just take a hake brush, apply clean water to both sides of the paper, and lay it flat on the board. In either case, I'll leave it for some minutes to allow excess water to evaporate and the paper to relax a bit. Then I apply the gummed tape, pre-moistened though not by much as the wet paper will take care of much of that, and stick the paper down as flat as I can get it. And of course I'll leave it for hours after that, usually overnight. I've had the occasional problem with this method, but on the whole it works well and when I come back to the paper the next day it's absolutely flat.
I wonder if Deidre's method differs substantially from that? At a guess, what's happening is that the gummed tape is getting so wet that the gum is seeping beneath the corners where two pieces of tape overlap.
What I'd do when I'd finished the painting is either; rip it off the board, tear it to bits, and jump on it several times to the accompaniment of such language as you've never heard outside of a barrack, or, if it's worked, slip my pen-knife into one of the points at which the end of the paper can be seen through the strip, and cut along until I've freed the paper from the board, trimming any overlap. Using this method, I have never yet encountered the problem that Deidre describes (what's the betting I will, the very next time I do it?) so that's what I'd suggest. I think what's happening is probably too much water on the tape - so that the gum is being released too freely and where you don't want it, in short. Maybe the paper is just too wet when the tape is applied?
Posted
Having read all the above comments I must ask why you stretch it in the first place. I have been painting for more years than I can remember and never use anything less than 250lb (535gsm) paper. I have never in all the years I have been painting ever stretched paper. I use a couple of bulldog clips to attach the paper to the board and that's it - often I don't even bother with the clips to help in moving the paper around.
It's worth adding that Andrew Geeson who works very loose and incredibly wet in wet uses even lighter weight than I do and welcomes a bit of cockling to assist in helping the washes to run and flow and his work is superb. However I would suggest just use a heavier weight paper and do away with all the faff of stretching.
Posted
Yes I must confess that it does seem an awful amount of effort to go through, like Michael I always use heavy-weight papers 300lb Fabriano Artistico being my preferred choice these days. The reason that I bought my Keba Artmate was to stretch the hand-made Turner range of tinted papers from Ruscombe Mill in France, these are just about 90lb and the mill do advice stretching them and they are a delight to work on.
But let us not forget watercolour board, about as thick as mount board and I have used it on occasions when a full imperial sheet is called for (generally commissions). I've got a few boards left and the label is Daler Rowney so of course will be decent stuff.
I do know fellow artists who enjoy the process of stretching paper, I think that I actually enjoyed in at one time so each to there own as they say.
Posted
For some, Michael, stretching the paper is part of the ritual without which they don't feel complete as a watercolourist. For you, it's a faff - I fall halfway between the two extremes: the paper I'm using at the moment, a lightweight Fabriano which I think is around 140lbs (I've lost the label on the pack), certainly needs stretching: there's cockling, and there's corrugation - and I quite enjoy getting it absolutely flat. But I won't be buying paper of this weight again, even so - the one paper which, at 140lbs is still relatively easy to handle is Bockingford, I've found; but the Fabriano has not provided an experience I really wish to repeat.
Posted
Err? the gum/glue from the tape builds up on the board over time...the damp paper then sticks to this.
[1] wipe the board clean every time...
[2] paint/seal the board in gloss wood varnish...its easier to clean...
But using a very heavy grade paper & diagonal of ordinary masking tape works well...
So too drawing board clips with heavy paper..https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Clips-Clamps-Rings/Helix-Multi-Purpose-Drawing-Board-Clips-Pack-Q58070/B006K0OGMW/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1491645082&sr=1-1&keywords=drawing+board+clips
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