Art Tip - stretching watercolour paper

This is for any of my students who might be reading this!
I have just found out about this method from a fellow artist with Japanese connections. Most artists working with wet media such as watercolour or ink and brush techniques, will be familiar with some form of paper stretching to stop the paper from warping and buckling when wet.

The traditional method commonly used is to dampen the paper, place it on a board larger than itself, and run gummed brown paper tape around all four edges thus fixing it to the board.

When the paper dries, it should be nice and tight and flat. It is then ready to paint on. However the down side of this method, and one that always bothered me, is that when you are finished, you cut the paper free loosing the deckle edge hidden under the gummed tape.

This new method which uses egg white instead of gummed tape to stick down the paper, requires no cutting at the end. This is particularly good for thin water colour paper, but you will need to get a piece of rigid plastic sheet instead of wood for this method. This is the type of plastic used instead of glass for framing.

Take one egg white and paint it onto the back of your dampened watercolour paper, this may be easier if you beat the egg first so that you can paint it on evenly. When it is covered, turn it over and place it onto the plastic sheet allowing an even border all around for handling. Smooth it out so that there are no air bubbles trapped underneath it. Let this dry. You are now ready to paint. When you want to take the paper off the plastic, just flex the plastic sheet and it will pop off.