Measure and Trim your canvas to an excess of 3” around the perimeter of the surface you are wrapping, factor more if your surface depth is greater than 1”.

Place your canvas primed side up (the whitish side) with the raw canvas facing down onto your surface. Wrap the excess canvas around and under. It’s good to have another person to help so they can hold your canvas snug while you attach. Using your staple gun, attach the canvas to the surface the same way you would an artist’s frame: start in the middle of one side, then pull the canvas taut, and staple on the opposite side. Then, in this fashion of working on opposite sides, add staples all the way out to the edges. Once you have two parallel sides stapled, move to the perpendicular sides, and add staples in the same way, working from the middle outward, alternating opposite sides.

Note: It’s not critical to pull the canvas extremely tight, just snug. The gesso will finish tightening the canvas later. Just make sure there are no wrinkles or buckling, and that it’s even.

The purpose of using gesso on canvas is to prepare the canvas for paint, and to tighten the canvas. You will notice after each coat of gesso, the canvas will shrink tighter over the surface its attached to. Using a paint roller (recommended), apply the gesso in a thin even coat over the surface and edges. Gesso dries fairly quickly, and once the first coat has dried, you can add a second and third coat.

Note: You do not need artists’ grade or professional grade gesso. “Student Grade” gesso works perfectly fine for this task. A 16 oz. container covered my two 8 foot long workbenches, with three coats each.

After your three coats of gesso are completely dry, it is at this point, if you wish, you can paint your work surface a color. I didn’t paint my surface, I left mine gesso white because it reflects light, but if you want a red surface, or blue, or whatever you like, now would be the time to paint it. Almost any “durable finish” acrylic-based interior paint from the hardware store will do.

The purpose of varnishing your surface with polyurethane is to make it durable, washable, and waterproof. If you have painted your surface with a colored paint, you still need to use varnish to seal it.

I used a water-based product from home depot, but any water based clear polyurethane will work, as long as you use MATTE finish. This is important to not use a gloss so that your work surface isn’t prone to clay sticking to it.

I recommend applying your varnish in a well-ventilated area with a synthetic brush, in a thin, even coat using strokes all in one direction. Natural brushes can lose bristle hairs that stick in your varnish, synthetic bristles are much less prone to this. Don’t forget to seal the edges too.

After about 10 minutes, lightly stroke your brush over the surface in opposite perpendicular strokes (i.e. if you applied stroking east-west, stroke your brush back over it north-south). You’ll notice the bristles will matteify the varnish a bit more.

Make sure during the drying period that pet hair, dust or debris doesn’t settle into the varnish or you’ll be staring at it on your work surface forever, unable to wash it off! Before it dries you can carefully remove any debris that stuck with tweezers or a toothpick.

After your coat of polyurethane has dried completely to manufacturer specs, very lightly sand over the whole surface to smooth any dust particles that may have adhered, and to gently roughen it to make the next coat adhere better.

Repeat these steps and add a second coat of varnish. Add a third coat if you want extra durability!