280g canvas roll

Canvas is a heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks and other items for which sturdiness is important.280g cotton canvas It is also used by artists as a painting surface stretched across a wooden frame. 280g cotton canvas is thick and stiff, ideal for artists who want to create a traditional oil or acrylic painting. This type of canvas is also popular for decoupage and needlework projects, or simply painted as wall art. Many artists experiment with different canvases, primers and grounds to find a surface that works best for their painting style.

There are two major fibres that can be used to make canvas: cotton and linen (flax).280g cotton canvas Both are durable but differ in their strength, texture and cost. Linen is much more expensive as there are few non-art uses for it and it takes longer to process the flax into fabric. Jackson’s stocks professional-quality linen canvas by the metre from three different manufacturers: Artfix, Belle Arti and Claessens. The French linen from Artfix has a smoother, tighter weave and is slightly stronger than the Italian and Belgian linens from Belle and Claessens respectively. Linen has a natural resistance to paint penetration and can be primed with one to seven coats depending on the quality of the canvas and the artist’s preference.

The thickness of the thread and how tightly the fabric is woven determines the weight. The higher the weight the more tension it can hold without tearing. The texture of the weave is also important – a coarse or rough canvas has a thicker thread and is loosely woven while a finer fabric with an open weave is lighter in weight.

When choosing a canvas it is also helpful to consider whether you want to stretch your own or buy a ready-stretched canvas. The latter is easier to handle and may save on the expense of glue-sized canvas and stretching bars. However, it is not as flexible as a stretched canvas and the paint may crack under stress.

Purchasing a ready-prepared canvas is also a convenient way to begin a painting. These are either gesso-ed or priming may have been applied by the manufacturer. They can be purchased as either a full roll or by the metre and come with the edges trimmed and sanded for a neat finish. Some artists like to sand their own gesso-primed canvas for a smoother surface but it is necessary to remember that this can be very time-consuming and some painters may prefer to purchase pre-primed canvases anyway to reduce the amount of work they have to do in preparation of a painting.

The texture of a canvas is not necessarily related to its weight but it is often referred to as a ‘medium’, ‘rough’ or ‘extra fine’. The term ‘extra-fine’ refers to a particularly smooth texture that can be almost paper thin and is very popular with portrait painters as it doesn't distort the appearance of skin.