The hide I purchased from Pergamena was rolled up for storage. After having been rolled, the hide wants to keep this form. So, I needed to flatten the hide. To flatten the hide I soaked it in water for about 15-25 minutes. To my surprise, after just 5 minutes of soaking the hide became completely flexible, like a piece of fabric in the water. I then dried it off a bit with a towel and stretched pulled the edges taught to stretch it it onto a large piece of composite board using small nails. I had through at first to use a staple gun, but knowing that it will stabilize in this position as it dries, I thought it might be wise to prepare it for the next step I intend to do with some holes at outer tension points. After painting/gilding my plan it to hang it inside a wooden frame by threading some type of cordage through the hide holes from the nails to the wooden frame. Unfortunately I learned that it was not necessary to pull the hide so taught when it was wet. As it dried it tighened and tore through the skin, in some areas completely out of the skin so I thought to staple it (breaking the tension up into two points). This worked well but didn’t give me the holes I was looking for to thread cordage through for hanging later. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Re-stretched hide after soaking it. After the hide dried overnight I lightly sanded it with 250 sandpaper and then mapped a diagram for a color study in pencil. My plan is to use egg tempera for the color study.