Painting on Canvas Prints Unmounted

We have several local customers who like to paint over photographs. Recently a new customer came in to pick up his canvas print. He told me he wanted to completely paint over the photo printed on canvas so that it looked like an original painting. His main question was if he should have ordered it stretched and mounted. Right away I told him I am usually surprised when artists order prints stretched and mounted they plan to paint on unless they are only applying a few highlights and embellishments. I said while there is nothing preventing a person from doing so, they would want to be aware of a few things before choosing if it should be mounted or not.

 

 

First, if you have any experience with painting on a blank canvas which is on a stretcher frame, such as you find in an art supply store, you will find they are stretched pretty tight. On the other hand, a canvas print will not be stretched as tight simply because the person doing the stretching and mounting also has to contend with positioning of the image. If they were to stretch it too tight, the image would appear to over-wrap on the sides or around the back. With some images this might not be a problem but who’s to say that a tiny detail of the image which might be lost on the sides or back is or is not important to the person ordering the canvas. For that reason, we as well as most canvas printing services try to keep the image as precisely centered on the frame as possible.

 

From my own experience when I have tried to paint on a stretched canvas, I initially found it felt like I had a little less control of the paint daubs and the brush strokes. To me the mounted print simply had too much give compared to the blank pre stretched canvas. I tell people, if you are used to a canvas with some spring back you may find the stretched canvas print does not bounce back as quickly.  And if you are used to painting on a canvas which is not mounted first or used to painting on some sort of panel, you might find it a little disconcerting that the canvas has some give. None of these should be big game changers. I found with a little quick practice I was able to compensate on how much pressure I was applying and I did not think it would be difficult for others to do the same.

 

Technique is very important to consider. If you are used to applying big impressionistic daubs of paint you might find painting on a stretched canvas has too much yield. On the other hand if you use very light precise strokes you might find painting on a stretched canvas print less of an issue.

 

After I explained this to the customer he asked me if I thought cracking of the paint would be an problem if he were to stretch and mount the painted print himself. I actually did not have an educated answer for him on that. Personally I did not recall it being an issue but I thought I better do some research on this just in case it was something I had not noticed. After reading a few posts on a discussion board for professional framers who seemed to have some experience in stretching and mounting paintings, they indicated that it depends on how dry the paints are. If you are a painter you know that paints, even acrylics tend to still have some curing to do even after they have dried. If they have cured too much they are going to be more solid  therefore you are likely to see more cracking. Of course this cracking effect is nothing new. You probably have noticed these in very old paintings as well. What happens is the canvas underneath as it ages expands and contracts with the environment over time. But since most would want to avoid the paint cracking too much the solution it seemed was to not wait too long to stretch and mount your painting. If it feels a little tacky to the touch but not coming away as wet paint, that is going to be the best time to stretch and mount your canvas.

 

Once your print is mounted, let it continue to dry. If you see any cracking, it’s likely going to be around the edges or corners. Take your paint brush and touch it up and you should have a pristine and new painting to hang on the wall.