Being a novice I read a lot of different articles and came across some artists preferring to stretch the paper before you use it, some use masking tape, others use kraft tape. I bought some kraft tape and my husband had found some scotch tape.
I also wanted to use a lightweight compact surface to be able to bring with me when I am painting out and about so also tried both types of tape on a variety of surfaces:
- MDF board (at the back)
- Soft folder
- Hard clipboard
- Tin – used my faber castell water colour pencil tin
The soft folder led to bleeding of the paint whereas the ones taped to the hard surface of the clipboard fared better. I found it difficult to remove the kraft tape so ended up just folding it behind. I prefer the cleaner look so continued to used clipboards or acrylic perspex for my paintings.
The larger painting on the MDF behind – found the kraft tape stuck to the board and I had to cut if off. I saw a youtube video where one artist just keeps cutting it off leaving a pile of old kraft tape on the MDF board. There were some videos that showed how to take it off by soaking it again but found this to be too time consuming and it didn’t work 100% so I was left with some residue.
I found the scotch tape on the MDF board didn’t stick so well and it was hard to reuse whereas using the Perspex clipboard I could reuse the scotch tape multiple times, particularly the good quality ones. I also did tests using cheaper masking tape but it was too sticky and tend to rip the paper.
Overall winner was the blue scotch tape (also known as painters tape) on a hard acrylic perspex surface eg clipboard.
Rachel Fong Art 