Tennis, anyone?

What does a tennis racquet have to do with stretcher bars for artist’s canvas? They’re both made of wood and they warp. The wooden tennis racquet has been around for about 500 years. It was reinvented in 1965 by a French tennis player, René Lacoste, using tubular steel. In 1968, the Spalding company started marketing the first extruded aluminum rackets. With this, the game changed dramatically into the hard-hitting sport we know today. And nobody, not even the recreational player, uses a wooden tennis racquet today.

René Lacoste, a member of the famous “Musketeers” tennis team of France and a star during the 1920’s of the courts at Wimbledon, Forest Hills and Roland Garros.

Likewise, the stretcher bar that painters use today hasn’t changed in over 500 years—not since the Renaissance and Michelangelo. It’s still made from wood, and it still warps. Get ready for change—a new era of confidence in the foundational materials for painters will begin with the reinvented stretcher bar made from 100% extruded aluminum.

Invented and patented by Stephen Hall, the DrumTyght™ ProCanvas Stretcher Bar will make life easier and cheaper for the painter. Frustrated with artist canvases that are stretched over wooden stretcher bars which tend to warp, Hall set out to create a new and better canvas stretcher frame for the professional artist. His stretcher bar design combines the geometry of the Egyptian Triangle of the pyramids, the Golden Ratio and extruded aluminum to create a revolutionary new stretcher bar for professional artist canvases.

Roger Federer with an armful of tennis racquets made with extruded aluminum. Nobody, not even the recreational player, uses a wooden tennis racquet today. So why are artists still using wooden stretcher bars for their paintings?

The Top Ten Benefits

DrumTyght™ Stretcher Bars pair well with the needs of the professional artist and the collector:

1. Enhanced reputation: Drumtyght’s™ extruded aluminum material and design allows the artist to enhance their own professional credentials by using the most up-to-date and highest quality material for the foundation of their artwork.

2. Positioning statement: Enables the professional artist to differentiate themselves from recreational artists and hobbyists who are painting on wooden stretcher bars.

3. Environmentally friendly: DrumTyght’s™ extruded aluminum is recyclable, sustainable and 100% made in USA

To keep tennis racquets from warping, players had to keep them locked in a tennis racquet press when not playing.

4. Reliability: DrumTyght™stretcher bars will not warp, ever

5. Firmer painting surface: Canvas can be stretched tighter with more tension than on wooden stretchers.

6. Reuseable: Canvas can be removed and restretched in the exact same position without any loss of image or canvas. Tacks and staples are not used to attach the canvas to the stretcher bar thus eliminating holes or tears in the canvas.

7. Storage: Takes up less storage space since frame can be broken down, with no damage to canvas which can be stored flat or rolled.

8. Cheaper to ship: DrumTyght’s™ extruded aluminum is hollow and lighter than wood with braces. It can be disassembled for shipping and easily reassembled at the destination.

9. Lighter weight: Makes it easier to handle large formats, no bracing required.

10. Simplifies the process of making your own canvas: DrumTyght™ stretcher bars and canvas can be assembled in minutes using only a phillips head screwdriver and a kitchen spatula.

Tradition holds that Humphrey Bogart, pictured at top of page with a Great Dane and tennis racquet, originated the phrase “tennis anyone” in a play early in his career: “I used to play juveniles on Broadway and came bouncing into drawing rooms with a tennis racket under my arm and the line: “Tennis anybody?” It was a stage trick to get some of the characters off the set so the plot could continue. — From Bogart interview with Erskine Johnson in 1948

Benefits provided by the artist using DrumTyght Stretchers to the collector:

•  Drumtyght™ stretcher bars provide a superior quality painting foundation that matches the quality of the artist’s artwork and will never warp.

•  Drumtyght™ stretcher bars are designed to withstand the test of time and various environments once it’s in the hands of the collector

•  Drumtyght™ is a “green” product that is reusable, recyclable, sustainable and made in the USA

In summary, whether you paint like Michelangelo or Picasso, you need to paint on the “latest and greatest” foundation to enhance your reputation as a professional painter. Make it the best—DrumTyght™ extruded aluminum stretcher bars, available late fall 2015.

To learn more about DrumTyght ProCanvas Supports and when they will become available for purchase, please follow 2D Blogazine. To follow, click the yellow box on the upper, right hand corner of this page.