and then this arrived

[silvercleave]

any suggestions ?? the picture is printed on canvas, picture 58cm x 38cm with 4cm top and bottom but only 2cm each side, the colours have stumped me as they appear a little on the brownish side.
Does a picture printed on canvas have to be sprayed?

Thanking all in advance as I know someone will come up to help, as usual

regards

Ian

USA Canvas print.JPG

[kev@frames]

Hi Ian,
Yopu are right, they often come varnish sprayed, the place who does them near us uses one of the frog-juice products for theirs. You are opening a can of worms with the customer if you go ahead and spray varnish it yourself - its so easy to bugger it up - so I would steeer clear of even offering to unless you have had a good practice run.

I presume you are wanting to stretch it? but sometimes we suggest to customers with these that we'll treat it same as any other (paper) print, mount it and frame it - as its often the method which suits the amount of work (time) they want to pay for.

we've had these with the too-small borders, they can be stretched, just, on thin stretchers. You could add a bit of canvas, or have the whole thing bonded onto a larger bit of canvas in an ideal world. Or you could PVA it down onto a board.

problem you may have is the ink coming off. There's a lot of differing print qualities with this stuff. Trouble is you dont know till you start working on it. They are sometimes not printed with the framer in mind, but just to get the biggest image onto the smallest/cheapest size of canvas, or up to the max width of the roll.

whatever you do, its going to be a bit of a PITA.

If someone local does canvas printing, have one done for yourself as a demo, with a good couple of inches border, then you can easily use it as a demo to show customers what can or can't be stretched in a straightforward way.

If you step back and look at the situation, your job is a framer and you frame stuff in a suitable way. Ideally if its on canvas it was done on canvas so that it could be stretched and framed like a canvas painting (else it might as well be on paper), but if they haven't left you enough border to strech it properly, thats not your fault and it shouldn't be your problem.
Its a shame for the customer, because naturally they don't have to "think framer" when they buy something, and actually its probably not strictly "fit for purpose" if a canvas picture is un-stretchable.

As its digitally printed maybe the customer can get another done, with decent borders?
But if they can't get another (eg it was a gift, or they got it on holiday), then you have to treat it as "irreplaceable" and that means not interfering with it more than necessary. Hence me "treat it like a paper print" suggestion.

Not much help, but maybe its a start. Someone will be along in a minute with a better solution, hopefully.

[Not your average framer]

This could be one of those risky jobs which might drop you right in it!

So don't take any risks:

No liquid adhesives.

No heat, hence no dry mounting.

No fingers on the image area, (protected or otherwise).

And given time to think about it, there may be other things to avoid too.

I would stick this down onto self adhesive mountboard, (get the customers agreement first), cut a mount for it and then frame it. A nice easy, low risk, profitable job.

[WelshFramer]

In my experience canvas prints are very delicate. I used to use a UV spray but still found it difficult to stretch them without scratching or cracking. You may find it's already been sprayed but will still need care. After the first time I always used to cover the bench with a couple of layers of soft blanket to avoid them being scratched.

Now I cover them with a mat laminate in a vacuum press.

[framejunkie]

cover the bench with a couple of layers of soft blanket to avoid them being scratched.

Yes, I'd second that. Also i usually put down a layer of release paper, as even cloth can scuff the surface of unsealed giclee prints on canvas. Might leave you white patches at the edges, or more normally just shiny areas

I used to have a regular gig stretching batches of printed canvasses for high-end office decor jobs(you know the sort of thing - interior design masquerading as Fine Art). As my customer was charging his customer a small fortune they had to be impeccable and we found the best way was to spray acrylic giclee varnish on them after they were stretched(spray them before stretching and they can shrink very unevenly and look a bit pants). We couldn't vacuum drymount laminate onto them, as some were about 3.5metres long(anyone got a HotPress that big?), but for smaller works its definitely the easiest way

[silvercleave]

Well thanks to you all, once again the forum members have come up with the answer, having spoken to the customer who has agreed to have it PVA'd onto board and hang just as that.

thanks to all

Ian M