 Hey guys, okay so if you're going to do a lot of watercoloring at some point you're going to want a watercolor on a sheet of just loose paper like this that's not on a board or anything. This is a sheet of Strathmore cold press 400 series watercolor 140 pound watercolor paper and you could definitely put this onto a board, you know soak it and get it wet put it onto a board with some gum tape and let it dry and I've done that I've only done it once. This is the gummed tape it's you know it looks kind of like old fashioned butcher tape but it's called gummed tape and you get it at the art supply store. Then when it dries the paper shrinks up really tight and it's very taut. Now it's pretty tricky to do and you know when I've done it in the past it's hit or miss sometimes it works well sometimes not so much I don't know if I get the tape to wet or what. I heard about this alternative way and I'll tell you I'll talk about this in a minute I heard about this alternative way to stretch your paper that I thought it wasn't very expensive so I thought I'd get one and try. This is from Ken Bromley Art Supplies in the UK and this is a perfect called a perfect paper stretcher and this particular one doesn't say how big it is let's see it's about nine and a half by like thirteen and a half somewhere in there it's a wooden it comes with instructions it's a wooden board and it's got these rubber pieces on the side and basically again you soak I'm going to soak my paper for five minutes then we're going to put it around the board and we are going to use these pieces of rubber in the groove to attach the paper to the board I'm going to show you what I mean I'm going to try to remember to link Ken Bromley Art Supply has a video on this perfect paper stretcher on YouTube as do a couple of other people I'll try to remember to link it below but if I forget do a search that's how I found out about them and I'm going to pull these out because we'll need to pull them out anyway alright and then we're going to set the board aside and the instructions in a safe place let's click them up so they're out of the way alright so we've got our paper here and this is an acrylic block uh blah blah blah an acrylic box frame this is a fairly large one because I wanted to be able to soak different sizes of paper because if this board works this board does come in a couple other sizes and if this board works I might want to buy one bigger size so I wanted this acrylic box frame to accommodate that in the future anyway this is an acrylic box frame you can get them anywhere your arts and crafts supply your framing supply they're not expensive I just pulled the cardboard box backing thing out and you're left with this clear acrylic tray that's perfect for soaking a piece of paper so I have some water here and we're going to just pour this on here enough to cover the paper and then we're going to let it soak for five minutes and when we come back we'll see how we can get this on the paper stretcher we'll see if it works I'll be back okay five minutes are up I've gotten a clean towel out of my rag bin and let's get the paper following the directions it's nice and wet now we're going to lay it on the clean surface it says to put the board face down now it doesn't say you have to do this but I did get the board a little bit wet I sprayed it with a little water I'm going to center it in the paper it does say the paper should be about three quarters of an inch bigger than the board all right then it says to flip it over let's try to get my hair out of there and remove the excess moisture by placing a towel or kitchen paper roll over the paper surface and lightly press down which we did we don't want to get it too dry then it says to fold the lightly press down and bend the paper over the edges of the board how about if we get it centered first because you know that would be helpful I think okay um nip the corners of the paper turn the board on its side place the first gripper that's what these black things are called grippers all right so I need a long one and I've got a wooden mallet here to whack them in with repeat on the three sides it does say when you watch the video to give it a slight tug when you do the opposite side which I just did because you really want to pull that paper pretty top and I'm working my way from the center out last one look at that it's not even dry and it's tight as a drum now it says you could dry it with a hair dryer or just leave it out to dry I'm gonna just leave it out to dry and we will come back to it and we'll see what it looks like in a little bit it shouldn't take too long to dry and I'm gonna I'm gonna put it up on top of something maybe my jar of art guard so that it gets good air circulation and we'll see we'll see what happens when it dries but so far I gotta tell you guys I'm really impressed that was way easier than working with gum to tape I gotta tell you you know the only thing is that you're limited to whatever size of board you have but boy I like it so I might need to go get a couple more sizes of these boards he doesn't make them in a lot of sizes but I'm gonna try to remember to add them into my amazon shop so that if you guys want the board and mallet which I did buy separately they will be in my amazon shop and I will be back in a few minutes or a few seconds for you a few minutes for me when this is dry and we'll see what our results are all right I'll be back okay hey guys so my watercolor paper is almost completely dry it's still a little bit cold which means it's still a little bit damp but um I gotta tell you I'm completely impressed it was so easy it's tight as a drum there's no air bubbles I love this so much more than messing with the gum to paper tape this is the quarter imperial size it is nine and a half by 13 and a half Ken Brownlee does make two other sizes half imperial which is 13 and a half by 20 and a half inches and full imperial which is 20 by 28 inches now amazon usa our amazon here in the states only carries the quarter imperial if you want the other two sizes you have to go through Ken Brownlee's website and order them through his website um he does ship internationally um but I don't know what the shipping is going to cost so I am going to um I have to save up a little bit but I do think I want at least one more size this is the smallest I do think I want one more bigger size I may want both but the 20 by 28 is awfully big and I don't know that I'd ever do a watercolor painting that's that big that's a really big you never know you should never say never but but that's a really big um this is a good standard size um this is a good size to do a painting on and then put a mat and you know give it a frame and it's a it's a good size so anyway I'd start with this one I love it I give it double thumbs up all right so give it a try if you want to if you want to try it less expensively than buying this board and a mallet and all that then go for the gum to paper tape it there you know it does take some practice to work with to get it right but it does work and it's less expensive than buying the perfect paper stretcher I will try to remember to include some links not only for the perfect paper stretcher but for doing stretching your paper using the gum tape in the description below for so for so look for them if I forget leave a comment and I'll I'll try to remember to add them in all right that's it for right now don't forget to like and subscribe I'm glad you stayed and watched and don't forget to go out and have a good day and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later