Painting On A Printed Canvas

That would be a big risk to take April. Maybe if the sides of the canvas has ink, you could test a little piece on the bottom side and see what happens. That way you would not ruin the whole thing.

April...it has been done for years...it's usually done in acrylic...

google "giclee embellishing" or any such terms and I'm sure you will get the answers you need...though I think you will need to know what type of final finish coating faa's printer uses...you can call them to find out.

April, are you suggesting you may want to buy the finished canvas from FAA, treat it and then sell it locally or in galleries and such?

Not a good idea. FAA is not a wholesale to the trade printer. You need to find a printer locally or on the net that IS a wholesale to the trade printer. The you need to talk to them and tell them you concerns. If they are any good at all they will send you samples to experiment on.

Also make sure you take in the consideration of the different coatings that they put on the finished canvas. You find that applying the treatment before or after the coating is applied will give you different reactions.

All of this stuff are different chemicals. The different reactions may be altered by simply longer drying times. I found that out when I worked with gicless that were dry to the touch compared to ones that we let dry for 48 hours. We got different reactions for different acrylic coatings.

We also got reactions from putting them under glass and it was magnified if it was hung in the sun. A good giclee printer should be able to assist you what these things. Or a good professional picture framer that has had to deal with these issues.

April,

If I might add to your question with mine?

I also am a digital artist. I want to get an finished gabbro effect.
I have no clue how to get this effect. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington
uses a polished set of gabbro pieces for the walls.

Lawrence would Google "giclee embellishing" offer me an answer?

Would the FAA printers be able to handle this effect?

Gabbro is a volcanic rock that has a black mirror effect to it.

Dave

I do it all the time for clients...I call them enhanced giclees. I don't use medium with acrylic metallic paint because they are already translucent.
I buy the giclees from whatever company offers me the best price for product/shipping...have never had a problem with any of them.

Here is an example of FAA vs a wholesale to the trade printer.

I sold 3 of the same image, on canvas to the same buyer. To fill the order via FAA it would have cost me over $300 with the shipping. I had the entire order filled for $175 by using me own printer. Same quality,same images, same sizes.

a certain famous painter of houses of light did it all the time.

I would love to do this too - keep us updated on your success. best of luck.

I am beginning to see these are two different questions.

Dave

The best is to inquire to make sure how the prints from FAA will handle it. I don't think you will have a problem. Acrylic is the best source, but some folks have used oils as well. OR go to a printer near you and they will advise. As Marlene stated, embellishing is done all the time.

Dave, I would use clear/ or the color you want of acrylic and add sand into the mixture, another technique used by digital artists to add more texture and interest.

Really there isn't much you can't do.

Now some may disagree with me on this, but from what I understand digital art that receives embellishing, now becomes not just a print, but mixed media and an original.

@Dave... "Lawrence would Google "giclee embellishing" offer me an answer? Would the FAA printers be able to handle this effect?"


No, Dave...I don't think a search for "giclee embellishing" will help you much with that...and you may have a hard time finding it out because searching the word "Gabbro" will result in a place or rocks way before anything on a finished look for artwork.

I would contact the museum you saw the work in and speak to someone in the know.

I don't think I ever heard of a "Gabbro effect" on art...but if you are just talking about a thick clear coating...then maybe you can get a print...affix it (with acid free glue) to a 1/4" or 1/8" board and then use clear epoxy resin?

Hi, Sydne.....
So, if I put a drop of paint or sand on a print from FAA, it becomes an 'original'? How does that compare to it being an 'embellished print"? I know the price goes up either way.

Thank you everyone for your responses. To answer some of your questions, I don't plan on using FAA necessarily for prints that I will be doing this with, but I was curious if anyone had tried it with a print from here. The horror stories I read online all stemmed from cheap quality inks and/or chemicals used in the printing process, and since these would be one-off original mixed media gallery pieces that can fetch a much higher price than just a printed canvas, I would want to know that they are of good quality, so I'm exploring my options. I plan an using acrylic paint and gel medium, and I have a cheap printed canvas to try it out on, so I will let you know how it goes with that. Probably won't get to it until next week though.

A drop of paint on a print is a "drop" of paint on a print. ;)

An "embellished giclee print" is a print that has added paint to it in order to bring it towards the "look" of an original...it gives it texture/dimension/paint...but it's still an "embellished giclee print" and not an "original". However, it will/should cost more than a straight giclee print.

A print can become an "original" if you take the print and use it as your layout..then repaint the whole thing...or 90+ percent of it. IMO ;)

April, I really like your idea....good luck.

Thanks Lawrence.

April your concern needs to be the "finish coating" sprayed over the "cheaper inks". It's the coating the acrylic is going over, not the ink. Maybe those horror stories were because they use paint over a giclee that wasn't coated or coated with crappy stuff?


You're welcome, Viv ;)

You have to add more than a drop I would think. Folks can term it as an embellished print, but now it is more than just a print, you have made it into a mixed media, acrylic, oil and sepia(ink) piece.

On whether prints can handle acrylic, I found this. I am sure FAA prints will be fine.

Can You Embellish On That?
In the world of giclée printing – most notably canvas giclée printing - embellishing is the hot trend.

Whenever we discuss hand embellishing of prints, we get a flood of questions, like:

Should you embellish your giclées?
What choices are there for embellishing?
What products can be used?
How does embellishing affect archival quality or the print?
What the heck IS embellishing, anyway?
Webster’s dictionary defines embellish as:
1. To make beautiful by ornamentation: adorn.
2. To add fanciful details to.

As applied to canvas giclées, embellishment refers to painting over areas of the print to enhance color and/or adding brush strokes to the finished print. In order to shed some light on the subject, we ran some tests in our lab and have come up with the following list of do’s and don’ts for embellishing your giclée prints.

Do not try to embellish watercolor giclées with paint. Although our giclée prints on watercolor paper are water resistant, the inks can be lifted with water and a brush. Instead, if you want to punch up a color, use a colored pencil (Berol or Prismacolor work well,) or use a pastel pencil. Use a light touch at first and experiment on your proof until you get the effect you are looking for. We recommend using pastel pencils, as they tend to have a duller finish than colored pencils.
Canvas giclées come to you sprayed with a protective coating, allowing you to paint on top with acrylic paints. You can also use oil paints, but we have better success with acrylics. If using acrylic paints, mix a bit of gloss gel medium to the acrylic paint to provide a sheen that will match that of the canvas finish. Do not spray or varnish over the canvas after you have painted on top of it. Your finish may not be compatible with ours. How much or how little embellishing you do is entirely up to you.
You can also add texture to your canvas giclées by adding brush strokes with Liquitex gel medium (make sure you get the kind that dries transparent). You can apply it pretty thick if you want – we applied areas up to about 1/8” thick and, although they took 24 hours to dry, they did dry transparently. If you want to embellish for color and add brush strokes, add the acrylic paint first, then the gel medium after the paint has dried thoroughly.
You can add brush strokes to giclée prints on watercolor paper. However, we do not coat the watercolor paper, and adding the gel medium will noticeably alter the density – in other words, your print will appear much darker/punchier after applying gel medium. For this reason, we do not recommend adding texture to giclée prints on watercolor paper.
It's always better to stretch or mount your canvas giclée before adding texture or embellishing. If you stretch your canvas, start by stapling the middle of one side, pull tight, and staple the middle of the opposite side. Then do the same for the other sides, always making sure the canvas is stretched tight. Work your way around the canvas, top to bottom, left to right, stapling from the middle out, keeping the tension even. If the thought of stretching the canvas isn’t appealing, you can mount the canvas on ¼” archival foamboard using Laminall adhesive or Miracle Muck, both of which are available online or from art supply stores. Do not get either product on the front surface of your canvas print. It will remove the ink!

Thanks, Vivian! :)

Lawrence, that very well could be, which is why I was asking if anyone had tried it with an FAA print. I would assume that their finish coating is not the crappy stuff, but I'd hate to invest in a canvas for the purpose of embellishing it and find out otherwise.

Thanks, Sydne! That's very useful info.

You could buy a small canvas print like 8X10 from FAA and see how it goes April.

April....contact "Graphik Dimensions" (pictureframes.com)...and asked them if the coating they use on their giclee can be embellished with paints.

Maybe this was many years ago when giclee and embellishing first started....but I seem to remember that if a printer knew you would be embellishing the print...they used a certain finish coating? Now maybe technology is different? I have never embellished a giclee.

All I know is that in the end...you will be doing what you want and it will work out fine ;)


I also use "Staples Fine Art" ... http://www.staplesart.com/specifics/giclee.html .... the owner, "Mark Staples", knows his stuff...maybe he can help?

Excellent thread - saving this. Great post Sydne !

Would it be worth ordering a sample pack from here.

You can ask your printer to leave off the protective coating. I know the canvas printer I use will do that. They use Canon pigment inks. Then you add a protective coat when finished.

It would be expensive, but when I order prints from my printer, there is a sample print, which is about the same price as FAA. Its a good way to practice with the acrylics and how the materials react with the acrylic before one attempts to paint on the larger print.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I think I may order small prints from a few of the printers mentioned and give them all a try, and I will see if they also offer an option for leaving off the finish coat entirely. That would be ideal for this purpose. But, of course, that means finishing the piece first.

this is what gottfried helnwein does with most of his massive art, just gets his photos printed onto really large canvasses and then paints over them, the dude makes a mint , fair play!!

Thanks Lawrence very useful information.