A paint by numbers canvas can arrive one of two ways: already stretched over a wooden frame, or rolled and loose. This is a guide to the second case — how to get a rolled canvas onto stretcher bars, when to do it, and one warning that applies specifically to kit canvases and is usually left out.
Stretch It Before You Paint, Not After
Do the stretching first. A taut surface is easier to paint on, the brush does not push the canvas away from you, and the numbers stay flat and readable.
Some guides suggest painting flat and stretching afterwards. It can be done, but dried acrylic has very little give, and pulling a finished painting over bars risks cracking the paint along the fold lines. If you have already painted yours flat, stretch it gently and accept a slightly looser tension rather than forcing it.
What you should never do is stretch, paint, un-staple and re-stretch. That is two chances to crack the paint for no benefit.
Check Your Margin First
Before you buy stretcher bars, lay the canvas flat and measure the blank border around the printed image.
You need roughly an inch and a half of unprinted canvas on every side to wrap and staple: enough to go over the edge of the bar and onto the back. Many kit canvases, ours included, are trimmed closer than that. If yours is, stretching will either pull part of the image around the edge or leave too little to staple.
This is worth saying plainly because it is a real limitation rather than a technique problem. If the margin is short, the better options are a floating frame, mounting the canvas on board, or buying the framed version of the kit in the first place. Our framed kits arrive pre-stretched on the frame, which sidesteps all of this.
What You Need
- Stretcher bars matching your canvas dimensions. They come in pairs and slot together at the corners.
- A staple gun, or tacks and a small hammer.
- A tape measure.
- Canvas pliers, optional but genuinely useful — getting even tension by hand is the hardest part of the job.
- A staple remover, for when a side goes on crooked. It will happen once.
How to Stretch It
- Measure the printed area, not the whole sheet, and buy bars to match that.
- Assemble the frame. Push the four bars together at the corners and check it is square by measuring both diagonals — they should be equal. A frame that is out of square will never pull taut.
- Lay the canvas face down and center the frame on the back of it.
- Staple the center of one side, then the center of the opposite side, pulling firmly as you go. Then the two remaining centers. Always work opposite sides in turn.
- Work outward from those four staples toward the corners, alternating sides, spacing staples every two inches or so. Tension builds evenly this way; going around the frame in a circle does not.
- Fold the corners last. Pull the corner straight back, fold the excess into a neat tuck against one side, and staple through it.
If a ripple appears, remove the staples on that side and redo it. Ripples do not settle out on their own.
Painting It
- Set up somewhere well lit. This matters more than anything else on the list.
- Unpack and lay out the paints in number order before you start.
- Work the large sections first and the small ones last. Your hand steadies as you go, so save the detail for when it is steadier.
- Finish one color completely before opening the next. It saves paint and keeps the pots from drying out.
- Expect a second coat on the pale colors. Light paint rarely covers a printed number in one pass.
- Stop at a color change rather than mid-shape. It is a natural break and the painting looks better after a night away.
Fixing Things
- Paint outside a line. Let it dry fully, then go over it with the correct color. Acrylic covers acrylic.
- Paint too thick or half-dry. A single drop of water in the pot, stirred with a toothpick.
- Creases in the canvas. If it arrived folded, see our guide on flattening a paint by number canvas. Stretching helps but rarely removes a hard fold entirely.
- Smudges on the unpainted areas. A dry cloth while the paint is still wet; once dry, paint over it.
Finishing and Displaying
Let the painting dry for a full day before doing anything else to it. Acrylic is touch-dry in minutes and properly cured much later.
A coat of varnish is optional. Satin evens out the patchy sheen you get from mixing thick and thin passes, and it protects the surface. Test it on a corner first.
For framing, choose the frame to suit the room rather than the painting, fit the stretched canvas so it sits centered, and add D-rings or wire to the back. Our guide to framing a paint by number canvas goes through the options in more detail.
Three display ideas worth considering: a group of several pieces as a gallery wall, a floating frame for a modern look that also solves a short margin, or hanging it in the room whose colors it already matches.
Common Questions
Do I need any artistic skill?
No. The drawing and the color choices are already made. What you are practicing is brush control.
What paint is in these kits?
Acrylic, in nearly all cases. Water-soluble, fast-drying, and it cleans up with water.
Can I mix the colors?
You do not need to — they are matched to the sections. Blending where two sections meet is a reasonable thing to try once you are comfortable, and it is the main way a finished kit stops looking like a kit.
How do I clean brushes between colors?
Rinse in water and wipe on a cloth before the paint sets. Acrylic that dries in the bristles is very difficult to get out, so rinse more often than feels necessary.
How do I keep the paint from drying out?
Close each pot as soon as you have finished with it, and open only the one you are using.
Why People Keep Doing This
The honest version: an hour of focused, repetitive work with something to show at the end of it. Several of our reviewers describe it as what they do instead of an evening of television, which is a modest claim and probably the true one.
There is a reasonable research base on art therapy and structured creative activity reducing anxiety — Art Therapy: A Complementary Treatment for Mental Disorders is a reasonable place to start — though it studies facilitated art therapy rather than kits specifically. Nobody has studied paint by numbers as such.
Kits Worth Starting With
If you want to skip the stretching entirely, our framed kits arrive already stretched on the frame: Moonlight Bay, Northwoods Retreat and Hummingbird are three of the more approachable designs, and the full catalog is here.
Custom Paint by Numbers makes a canvas from a photograph of your own. Finished ones are in the customer gallery, and there is a Ledgebay group on Facebook where people post work in progress.
