For those of you who paint and even for those of you who do not, but collect art or purchase my art; this entry is about canvas and some new technology available and that I’m happy to be using.  For years artists have been painting on just about anything they could get their hands on.  Most of the “old masters” were poor and certainly others have followed in their footsteps!  ( – ;      Thankfully not me!

Materials were also hard to come by back in the old days and by comparison, artists today live in the lap of luxury.  There’s no shortage of top notch materials at our disposal and as this entry will point out, there’s new things coming along all the time.

Over the years, artist “supports” (what artists paint on) for oil paintings have included mostly wood and cloth or canvas in a variety of quality and production methods, but I think it’s safe to say that stretched canvas is best known.  Still well known, especially in recent decades, has been a canvas wrapped wood panel and or a resin wood panel often known as Masonite (R).  All artists are trying to accomplish just a few things in their choice;  to find something they like painting on and then either something that is cost effective or of quality.  The last two often don’t mix.  My paintings are expensive and so I’m looking for quality.  That is to mean, I want it to way out last me!  Unfortunately, not all artists feel this way.

Quickly covering resin wood panels first.  They’ve been used for years and used properly they work quite well. Properly means a good quality panel, not the junk that is a light tan color and especially where one side is rough with a screen impression on it.  Even students should avoid this low grade contractor backing wood.  The dark tempered panels, sanded well and then gesso primed with at least two to three coats, will hold up fine.  Pros – strong, puncture proof and great for detail work as the surface has no real tooth and is smooth. Also not as likely to encounter paint cracking like stretched canvas over the years.  Cons – can get heavy,  no tooth and it’s not a sprung surface like stretched canvas, so it feels different.

For those that want the tooth of canvas, the idea has been to glue and wrap canvas around a wood panel.  It works just fine.  Cheap ones in the store are most often cotton canvas wrapped around a hard paper board.  These are student grade and something I wouldn’t personally use.  Additionally though, I also have avoided the canvas wrapped wood panel as well, but if I did choose this, I personally would only use linen canvas wrapped over a high grade birch ply.  Most panels I’ve seen artists use, unfortunately have often been on a cheaper Laun or MDF wood.  Again, a no, no for me.  This is junk even to a carpenter, much less an artist.  Pros – Much like Masonite, but canvas has tooth.

So, this brings us to stretched canvas.  Canvas is a broad term for a generally heavy woven fabrics.  For our purposes we can split canvas into two families – cotton and linen.  Both cellulose fibers, cotton comes from the cotton plant and linen comes from the flax plant – hemp is another example, but not really used for art canvas.

Pros for cotton are cost, it is easy to stretch and it generally stays tight.  Cons would be the reason it is easy to stretch is because the fibers are for the most part short, although modern production methods are helping in that area.  The fibers themselves are not nearly as strong or as long as linen.  Linen is without question superior and also better resists mold and time, but its main cons are cost as it is – especially depending on grade, way more expensive.  It’s harder to stretch and it’s temperamental to temp and moister change.  The net result can be it becoming loose on the stretcher bars and or even cockling (getting small waves).

This all leads us to the technology of canvas, the title of this entry.  Signature Canvas of Kansas City, KS. has come up with not one, but two inventive solutions to the main problems with linen and one of them is now my personal choice.  The first is is a patented built in stretcher frame tightening system which they call “Keyless Frame”.  Keys being a small wedge of wood tapped into the corners of the stretchers to tighten the canvas.  The  first photo shows their Keyless Frame.

Keyless Frame

Note my middle and index fingers pointing to two screws.  With this system, if the canvas should loosen at anytime, all you need to do depending on which side or multiple sides you wish to re-stretch, is loosen the top lock screws (shown by my left finger) and then turn the other screw (finger on the right) clockwise.  It a simple process that works great.

Pros – to this system are avoiding the standard staple removal and re-stetching, saving time and effort.  Cons – are that the system of parts and such make the canvas unit fairly heavy and as with standard re-stretching which makes the canvas contract in size, this system slightly expands it, which may make it not fit in the rabbit of your frame.  In my experiments, I will note, that the expansion was minimal, but I have found at least one canvas that would no loner fit in it’s frame.  Overall though, with proper planning, I think it’s a good system and at least Signature has made a grand effort to remedy a known problem.

Their next product also takes care of this too and is a good fix, blending a few established systems.

Three Supports

In the next photos, you’ll see three 18X24 supports, the top two are linen and the bottom one is a gessoed Masonite panel.  The top canvas is on stretchers and uses Signature’s keyless system.  The linen canvas under it is now my system of choice, their canvas panel.

This is linen or available in cotton canvas, applied to a gator foam panel.  So, instead of a heavier cheap plywood wood with acid, you have a lightweight stable, acid free panel.

In my investigation with Signature about the product for my own use, I found among many tests they ran on this product, they submerged in water over a weekend and it came out as it went in.  That’s not a likely outcome using plywood.  Pros – in my opinion – everything.  Cons – it’s non traditional.  Now I should mention, like any panel, it would resist being punctured, something a stretched canvas would not, but unlike a wood panel, this panel could be dented if hit or placed against something.  It’s pretty sturdy stuff, but I guess with the right malice or mistake, it could happen and I gave some thought as to how it could be repaired.

What I came up with was if a dent was to happen, I would repair it in one of two ways.  Small, I would force an awl or some tool through the back and push the foam (and canvas) back out.  Larger, I would then carefully remove a square of the foam directly behind the dent and replace the dented foam with a new undented piece.  I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it as (knock on wood) I’ve thankfully never had any artwork damaged.

The Backside

It is worth noting too, that Signature’s foam panel product is not completely original.  The technology was created years ago and made available mostly to the conservation trade with Arches watercolor paper mounted on both sides.

For what ever reason this product, known as I remember as Tycore, was discontinued, but I know it work well.  I first saw it used by the master watercolorist, Peter Sculthorpe whose paintings on this product were stable, unwarped and magnificent at 4 by 8 FEET!  I believe Peter shared with me that he bought up all he could find when it was discontinued and that’s close to 20 years ago, but guess what?  Signature makes their panel available with Arches too!  Watercolorists be in joy!  Imagine no warping.  Yippy!  Signature Canvas can be easily found online by just adding .com   Tell em, I sent ya!  Happy painting, Tom Neel