Talk:Canvas

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This canvas is stretched across a wooden frame called a stretcher, and it must be coated with gesso before it can be used.

Is this really true? Some of Francis Bacon's paintings are done on the unprimed side of the canvas - would it have mattered if the "correct" side also hadn't been covered with gesso? --Camembert

Lacking any reply, I'm going to assume that gessoing is usual, but not required (at any rate, I don't suppose Robert Rauschenberg gessoed his Bed before painting on it), and change the text accordingly. --Camembert

From experience, I can say that paint will soak through an unprimed canvas. This doesn't mean you can't paint on it. It'll just take a lot more paint. The other thing the gesso does is fill in the texture of the canvas to create a smoother finish. Some artists will use several coats and sand their gesso. Unfortunately, my only sources are personal experience and the memory of tips I've been given by my professors in years past. -WurdBendur (talk) 01:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SIZE?

How big the average painting is? There might had been no strict standard for decades but aint there an approximate tendency?Undead Herle King (talk) 23:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC) ___[reply]

This article needs more about the fabric itself - what's it made of? how is it made? After all the use by artists is not its prime application - I suspect that artists started to use canvas because it was a fabric already available for otrher purposes. Whic also means that there should be something in here about its history. Graham 07:27, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A discription of Canvas

Modern canvas is made of cotton. It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as twill, in the way it is woven. Canvas has a very simple weave, the weft thread just goes over one warp thread and under the next. (The weft thread for twill goes over one and under two and each weft thread moves the pattern over one thread. The result is a diagonal pattern such as you can observe in the cloth use for blue jeans.) Canvas comes in two basic types, plain and Duck. The threads in Duck are more tightly woven. In the USA canvas is graded two ways: by weight (ounces per square yard) and by number. The numbers run in reverse of the weight; so, number 10 canvas is lighter than number 4.

Cotton did not come into popular use until relatively recent times. Until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, separating cotton fiber from the seed was an extremely labor intensive process. For this reason, I wonder if some of the canvas used for paintings, sails, tents, etc., before the 19th century wasn't made from other fibers such as linen, jute, sissel, hemp, etc.

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I know this is about textile canvas, but I was cursious if anybody could add something about the use of the term "canvas." For example, I understand that "hitting the canvas" refers to someone taking a blow since a canvase was/is used as the covering of a boxing ring. However, it is not clear how the political term came to be adopted as in "we canvased all of the neighborhoods in the district"; this may refer to using a canvas to cover something completely, but it would be interesting to know how this derived. The political use of the verb "to canvas" is not included in dictionaries such as www.dictionary.com. Sorry if this is not entered correctly. This is my first time. FlashMcGruder (talk) 01:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the top of the article page, you'll see what's called a disambiguation, which takes you to a page with a list of the other uses of the word. If you go to that page, you'll find canvassing in the political sense. Most articles for words that have more than one meaning will have disambiguation links. Hope that helps! freshacconcispeaktome 01:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canvas Stretcher

Similarly to the comment regarding the fabric, more information on the subject of the design of stretchers and their history could be very useful.

See Stretcher bar. Bus stop 17:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It also talks about how great the splining stuff is without ever defining it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.37.141 (talk) 21:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Canvas

Any one out there knows how to call a heavy-duty, water-proof, UV stabilized canvas? i need to order some for outdoor cover, and do not know how to define it...

Thanks.