I have been wanting to do some of Bobs oval, bordered, et cetera paintings. I even have some ideas for some silhouette style paintings. The down side, my contact paper will not stick my my canvas without curling upward. It doesn’t want to stay.

Have any of you had this issue? How did you remedy this?

HI there, make sure the contact paper doesnt say "removeable" . You want the strongest stuff. I get it at Walmart but there are other heavy duty type rolls out there. Also, give the canvas a light brushing with a damp towel and let dry completely before applying the contact paper. The idea is to get any dust off the canvas that causes the paper to not stick so well. Lastly.. brush a tad of white gesso over the edges of your cutout. That helps seal it to the canvas and you will get less bleed under.

Good luck!

7 days later

Everybody has this problem. When everything failed for me I applied very narrow (about 4mm wide double sided tape (it's the very thin stuff you use for card making not the thick stuff you seal windows with) as close to the edge of the oval as possible which worked a treat. If you try this method, you must remove your contact paper as soon as possible, within a couple of hours if you can to avoid the adhesive permanently sticking to your canvas. If you mess up, a soft eraser helps to remove adhesive residue. It always works for me, I'm always pleased with my ovals.

Another trick is this.. most canvas is really rough surface stuff. So gesso.. sand it with 220.. gesso and repeat2-3 times. You end up with a much smoother surface which I prefer now because it lets me really do some nice detail work. But, the smoother surface lets the tape stick better and give a cleaner edge.

    15 days later

    I just followed a tip I remember from Dracula. It wasn't an oval I was working on, just straight lines but I remember Dracula said he uses it on his ovals. Blue painters tape works a treat because it sticks quite well, much better than contact paper. Don't bother trying regular masking tape, it's useless. For an oval I guess what you would need to do is stick overlapping strips of it together to create a sticky sheet, then cut out your oval and discard it, what's left behind you would lift and stick to the canvas, but I haven't tried it. Brilliant tip from wybl. You can paint the whole canvas with gesso, you can go a step further and add another layer inside of your oval after you have applied your mask and that helps to prevent your oil paint seeping under the edges, I've done that, it works a treat.

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