Art On Canvas

     Canvas art is one of the hottest new way in which to display reproduction art.  Until fairly recently, art on canvas only referred to original paintings.  Now with the advent of canvas transfers and digital printing, consumers can enjoy all the vibrancy and texture of original artwork at affordable prices.  The surfaces of finished art canvases are fully protected meaning that there is no need for further protection with glass or acrylic.

     Canvas art is produced either by transferring the face of a poster onto a canvas (canvas transfer) or by digitally printing onto a canvas with non-fading inks (giclee).  Both production methods preserve the texture of the canvas  thereby creating an authentic looking piece of artwork at  a fraction of the cost for a comparable original. Once a canvas is made, it is available in any of several formats including:

Unstretched Canvas
     The canvas is rolled and shipped in a tube.  This is preferable for shipping overseas or for wholesale customers who have the facilities to stretch their own canvases.  The vast majority of our customers have us stretch their canvases due to our very competative prices.
Canvas Stretched for Framing
     Canvases that are destined to be framed are stretched over a 3/4 - 1 inch wood support frame just as one would encounter looking at an original painting.  A very small amount of the artwork extends beyond the face of the stretcher frame to allow for the use of frames that do not have a lip (profile frames).
Museum Wraps
     Museum wrap canvases are not normally meant to be framed.  They are designed as ready-to-hang pieces of art and as such are our most popular product.   The canvas is stretched onto a stretcher frame that is 1.5 inches deep and the artwork is again pulled just slightly over the edge. The entire side edge is then painted in a dark that compliments the artwork and a wire hanger is attached on the back. The 1.5 inch stretcher frame bars allows the artwork to stand further off the wall thereby making it more prominent than it might otherwise be with a shallower stretcher frame.
Gallery Wraps
     Gallery wraps, like museum wraps, are also ready-to-hang products.   In this case, however,  the artwork extends over the edge and down the sides of the stretcher frame.  Hence, the sides of the stretcher frame display a continuation  of the artwork rather than being finished in a solid color as is the case for the museum wrap.  A wire hanger then placed on the back.  Although gallery wrap canvases seem very attractive, customers must be aware of two important features regarding these products:

     1.   The finished size of the canvas will be smaller that the original image size of the poster because the image is wrapped over and onto the sides.  Thus for a 1.5 inch deep stretcher bar, both the length and width of the finished product will be reduced by approximately 4 inches.
     2.  Gallery wrapping a canvas can potentially distort the picture if significant parts of the artwork are located near the edges. It is easy to imagine lopping off a head or a hand using a museum wrap with a deep stretcher.

Our recommendation regarding gallery wrap canvases is that they are best suited to larger items (> 24 x 24 inches) in which the loss of the outer two inches of the artwork would not have a significant impact on the overall look of the picture.  Large abstracts are in most cases ideally suited to being made into gallery wraps.