Canvas Art Prints

British artists have historically used canvas as the material on which to paint fine art. As canvas is not perfectly smooth there is an underlying textural effect on each painting when paint is applied. Because of this texture, a slight distortion may occur, which is why the realism of paintings of classic art is hard to reproduce in Limited Edition Prints .

Early canvas was made from linen. Although some Red Rag artists such as Sylvia Antonsen still prefer the fine qualities of linen canvas, today most British artists use cotton based canvas for paintings. For the production of canvas prints cotton is considered a better material than linen. This is because cotton canvas stretches more than linen and has a more even mechanical weave that can last for decades.

Canvas Limited Edition Prints: Artist Charles Jamieson

A canvas print, also known as a stretched canvas or canvas art is the result of an image printed onto canvas which is stretched onto a frame. Canvas limited edition prints give the appearance and texture of a handcrafted artwork but in reality is simply the transfer of a photograph that has been applied to the canvas.

Reproductions of original British artworks have been printed on canvas for many decades using offset printing. More recently, canvas print production has mainly been associated with either Repligraph or Giclee technology.

Repligraph is a dye printing process on canvas. A computer is not part of this process as the art prints are reproduced from negatives. The dyes use an oil paint base so they are best in reproducing oil paintings. The dyes are very long lasting, estimated to last for at least 100 years. Giclee technology involves spraying ink from a highly specialised large format inkjet which are used to create art prints and limited edition prints.

Canvas Limited Edition Prints: Jonathan Robertson

After the image has been printed, the canvas is trimmed to size. It is then glued or stapled to traditional stretcher bars or a wooden panel and displayed in a frame or as a gallery wrap. Gallery wrap is a technique where the canvas is stretched and wrapped around the sides of the framing board. The wrapped canvas is done with special stretcher bars in order to make them strong enough to hang unframed without warping. An art print that is designed to continue round the edges of a stretcher frame once gallery-wrapped is referred to as full-bleed. This can be used to enhance the three-dimensional effect of the mounted limited edition canvas print.

Red Rag Gallery - Limited Edition Canvas Prints