Relaxing Canvas???

[Dave]

I have had a customer bring in an oil from China in a tube. Not wanting to sound big headed, but it stretched a treat and I have to say that whilst not my taste it looked fabulous. It sat in my shop for a few days waiting for the moulding to come in , I framed it and it looked even more fabulous. Rang the customer and left a message telling him how good it looks and asking him to come and collect it at his convenience. Came in this morning and it looks awful, it looks like my dog has stretched it (Chocolate Lab, so far too stupid to make a good job of anything). It appears to have relaxed and now all the lines where it has been rolled in the tube are showing, Imagine the surface of The Wash in a force 9. Have left a message with the customer giving a highly scientific explanation for this phenomenem (complete Bullsh*t of course) and asked for a bit more time to let the highly scientific precoess which has occured to run it's course.


HELLLPP!!! what the heck is going on here, it has stood for asbout five days just begging to be praised, and now this?

Thanks in anticipation I know you can be collectively relied on.

[The Jolly Good Framer #1]

Tap the eight corner wedges in a bit to pull it up tight.
That’s assuming that you used stretcher bars. If you didn’t take it off and re-stretch it onto stretcher bars.
Canvas will always ‘relax’ over time but most of all in the first few days. That’s why it’s best to use stretcher bars. Also make the frame as big as possible so when you tap the wedges in the stretchers will have room to get bigger without having to make a new frame.

Also I have found that the best breed of dog to stretch canvas is an English Springer Spaniel.

[prospero]

That sounds familiar Dave. I have had some absolute swines to stretch.

You could try knocking the wedges in gradually and carefully dampening the back. The best thing for this is a airbrush as you can just mist over selected areas without saturating the canvas. You need to do this a slice at a time. Bit of tension - lightly damp and see what happens. Let it dry and repeat the process. Go steady and with luck all the lumps and bumps will pull out. I've fixed some really bad ones this way.

* Make sure your staples aren't too far apart when you do this or you can end up with a nice scalloped weave around the edges.

[framejunkie]

If the stretcher is rigid and unwedged you could just try wetting/dampening the back of the canvas and seeing how it dries. Sometimes that will work on its own. If its the usual poor quality cloth these asian pieces are usually on you'd be well advised not to bash the wedges(should there be any) in too hard - some of those far-east paintings are awfully flimsy

[Bill Henry]

Originally, I thought you wanted to relax the canvas. I was going to suggest you take it to a seaside resort and give it Celexa. I guess that’s not what you meant at all.

Assuming that you stretched it on stretcher bars, driving the keys in will probably help, but if it is already snug in the frame, that might limit your ability to drive the keys in far enough.

If you’ve stretched the canvas on strainers, then you’ve probably got to re-stretch.

I’ve had reasonable luck lightly spritzing the back of the canvas (I use strainers almost exclusively) with water, then immediately wiping up the excess moisture. Then I have warmed it with a shrink wrap “hair dryer” and tightened it that way.

It’s a bit risky, however. Too much moisture may seep into the canvas and loosen the bond between pigment and canvas, so you’ve got to be careful.

[markw]

In theory canvases should be painted on a stretcher - by the time everything has dried they tend to be naturally quite tight. We framers on the other hand often have to deal with canvases in their unnatural state, painted and removed from whatever was keeping them taught in the first place. By the time you have added dodgy paints - even dodgier materials loosely described as canvas you have a fair chance of the thing not behaving as it should.

My first reaction to this relaxed canvas would be to knock out the wedges (that is bang them in a bit further). If you have not allowed for this (I always allow 5-6mm more for a really big canvas) then try lightly damping the back of the canvas. if this fails then you are back to restretching with a good pair of stretcher pliers so that its nice and tight. If its any consolation even good quality canvases relax over the first twenty four hours.

[foxyframer]

Dave

I hang all canvases up on a wall for at least four days, and with some of the much larger ones for as much as two weeks before any attempt at stretching. Pin up 9" apart with a staple gun along the top and let the rolled canvas drop and relax of its own accord.

I found the same problem as you if they were stretched more or less immediately, with similar effects. Some of these canvases we get in are of variable quality nowadays.

Foxy

[Spit]

Some of these canvases we get in are of variable quality nowadays.

I think the clue was in the original post, "oil from China"

[foxyframer]

Ok Spit I surrender .... they're all crap.

End of.

Foxy

[RobinC]

Temperature is also a cause of canvases relaxing - not just on oil paintings. We had a Doug Hyde canvas delivered on a cold morning in February and it looked terrible - very slack - however, once it had warmed up the canvas tightened and it has looked good ever since. The way to tighten yours has been well covered in earlier posts.

20 years ago we sold loads of Chinese paintings on canvas, and whilst the quality wasn't brilliant, when they have come back in for framing up to 20 years later they are usually in good condition with few signs of fading, so for the price they have been a good purchase.

Virtually everything else that we now buy is made in China and we buy those goods without a second thought. The problem with decorative pictures is that they are often sold as investment art at highly inflated prices when in fact they are pleasant wall decoration (sometmes!) We stopped selling them as we got fed up with people telling us that they had met Cafieri and bought a painting direct from him for several hundred pounds, when they were worth £20 or £30 tops. Every few months they would appear on Watchdog or in the papers with people wingeing that their £100 purchase was not going to be worth £1,000's in the future and then come and moan at us, even though they paid no where near £100 for it framed. Even when we explained to customers where they came from and that they would not rise in value we were still told "But you never know do you?"

We still get people bringing them in for framing, having usually bought them from an artist who has gone round door to door selling his "work".

RobinC

[Dave]

Thanks all for taking the time. Have tried dampening the canvas to no avail. Having used underpinned stretcher moulding on this, I do not have the option of knocking in any wedges. Lesson learnt, will have to unpick well over 200 staples on this one and have another go. Definitely like the idea of hanging the canvas for a couple of weeks. (At sunrise until dead?). Will try this next time, once I have used up my stock of stretcher moulding, will stock up on stecther bars. Are good strecthing pliers really better than cheap ones?

[markw]

never understood the use of stretcher bar lengths that have no means of wedging out the corners. Little point in stocking stretchers unless you have a constant stream of standard size size canvases coming in. For none standard sizes you have to get bars made to size - including cross bars if the canvas is large..

Good stretcher pliers allow you to get a good pull on the canvas without ripping it.

[avantime]

The problem with the Chinesse canvas paintings is that, more often than not, they are painted on unstretched canvas. They fix a roll of canvas along a large wall and walk along making several paintings at once.

As a result when the canvas is stretched the canvas is not in equilibrium - there is paint on one side that was applied with no tension. When you stretch the canvas this can crack the paint.

I would suggest you restretch onto the "dead stretcher" using pliers - don't worry about how much force you use. It takes several tons to tear it! If it relaxes again then make a proper stretcher. Good luck!

[kev@frames]

or add a couple of pieces of 2x1 and make a deck-chair.
I'll get my coat.

ah, one constructive thing: lion do a really good staple removing tool, invaluable if you stretch/restrech canvases, and very fast to use. highly recommended, you wont regret having one handy in the workshop.