Not For Squares

We at Coulson Macleod are stick­lers for lots of things, and one of them is quality.

Our art­work is fin­ished by hand, by exper­i­enced local crafts­men. So no mass-produced ‘made in China’ stuff here. Each piece of art­work is quality-checked at every stage — after print­ing, after var­nish­ing, and after mount­ing — to ensure our high stand­ards are maintained.

We spent a long time find­ing just the right can­vas.  The one we use has a lovely nat­ural, tex­tured fin­ish and is 100% cot­ton. It’s a heavy can­vas too, per­fect for wrap­ping around our chunky (4.5 cm deep) frames. The can­vas is also optical bright­ener agent free, which does sound a bit dull, but optical bright­en­ers cause yel­low­ing over time, and of course we don’t want that.  The can­vas we use has also passed the Blue Wool Stand­ards test for light fast­ness (up to 75 years) and is one of only a few canvases to achieve this.  You see what you mean when I say we’re stick­lers for quality!

A Coulson Macleod canvas-mounted print is pro­duced using the very latest giclee print tech­no­logy, so we can get the best col­our and detail.  The qual­ity of our giclee print rivals tra­di­tional print­ing pro­cesses and is com­monly found in museums and gal­ler­ies.  And on the walls of many of the love­li­est homes around the globe!

After print­ing, a Coulson Macleod can­vas is then hand-sprayed with five coats of var­nish to ensure max­imum pro­tec­tion and a smooth con­sist­ent fin­ish.  The var­nish we use is a non-yellowing, water-based, var­nish that enhances the col­our and increases res­ist­ance to image fad­ing. It also pro­tects images against mois­ture and abrasion.

Then comes the frame. Museum-quality of course!  A Coulson Macleod can­vas is wrapped by hand onto the wooden frame. We choose Dutch spruce as this wood is free from knots and is com­pletely straight. We also put wedges in the frame, which can be gently tapped to tighten the can­vas. The final part of the pro­cess is fit­ting the hangers on the back so the can­vas print sits flat against your wall.

Back of a Coulson Macleod can­vas print show­ing the wedges

Back of a Coulson Macleod can­vas print show­ing the crossbrace

Tags: art, canvas prints, Coulson Macleod

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Genesis of an Art Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.