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Ellen Mitchell

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Posted
I’ve recently purchased a small stretched canvas...just to try. I’ve not painted on that surface before always preferring acrylic paper and canvas on board. This is probably a silly question, but what are the little little wooden wedges that come with it for? Also is it best to paint the sides or leave them, or is it just personal preference. I’ve seen both versions and I’m not sure which looks better finished off. Thank you folks. Ellen
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Tony Auffret

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Posted
If you push the little wedges into the slots in the corners of the frame (on the reverse side of course) you can tighten the canvas if it's too slack for you. As for the sides, it's probably a question of how/if you frame the painting. A traditional frame does not show the sides, so little point in painting them. `Some more modern 'floating type' frames, or even just hung canvas (for example deep edge) do show the sides and hence may look better painted.

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by TonyAuffret

Alan Bickley

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They are wedges or keys Ellen. They are to tighten up your canvas on the stretcher bars should this ever become necessary. You tap them in very gently, but you won't need to worry about that for some time, if ever! Leave the edges white and definitely don't continue your painting around the edges. It is done of course, but not by serious artists, it looks dreadful although others will disagree.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Agree with Alan - I just don't think any serious artist, past or present, would paint the sides of their panels. But then, we're not all 'serious' artists, and don't have to be - it's still a bit Ikea-home-décor though........ As for those wedges, sometimes made in wood, sometimes in plastic, what they do is expand the stretcher a little bit - if you have a serious canvas sag, though, they're fairly useless: the only answer to that is to re-stretch the canvas itself. The plastic wedges, being flexible, do seem to me to be WHOLLY useless, and a good sign of a canvas to avoid. Stretched canvas has a reputation greater than it deserves as a painting support - it's subject to damage, flexing excessively in different atmospheric conditions, degeneration of the fibres, rot, even moth damage if the back of the picture isn't sealed. A rigid panel is a better idea, or canvas glued to a rigid panel. But of course, a lot of us like painting on a flexible canvas so - you takes yer choice and pays yer money.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Marjorie - you're probably more careful than some! There are more than occasional requests online for 'how to repair a canvas that's torn/dented/gone mouldy' (rarely the last of these). You shouldn't have these problems - unless of course you inadvertently lean something against a canvas, which is the most common way for them to get damaged - for many years. They normally take a long time to develop; but I've seen all sorts of issues with old canvases; on the other hand - I've seen two or even three hundred year old canvases which hardly have a hint of deterioration at all: maybe dirty varnish, but that can show itself whatever you paint on. I remember cleaning an oil painting that had been in a pub for around 50 years, before the smoking ban. The filth was indescribable - but of course that wasn't the canvas's fault, and yes - I like painting on them too. (There's something especially horrible about a mixture of turpentine and nicotine stains: it turns into a sort of soup....)

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by RobertJones