Wavey Canvass

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Not your average framer
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Not your average framer »

Plenty of custoners including well known artists want me to cut mounts for them, so that they can put paintings on canvas behind mounts. They know that they should not do this, but this does not stop them. At all comes down to money, doesn't it. As to the method, of fixing the canvas in place, this does not get mentioned and I don't ask.

I have one customer, who is a very prolfic and well known artist who frames almost all of her work in older secondhand frames and appears to selling her work on an almost daily basis and mostly comes to me for smaller scrap bits of glass and backing board. There's never much money in it, but it fairly regular, if not massive money.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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prospero
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by prospero »

It amuses me that while they are trying to save money they adopt the most convoluted and complicated methods to
achieve this end. ("Half-Arsed" is the phrase that springs to mind). :lol:

Card mounts are for paper art. End of story. End of story. End of story. :P

Generally the right way is best and ultimately cheaper. :clap:
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Trinity »

I've a holiday canvas to do too, quite heavy oils, taken off the stretchers and rolled up to bring back.
Can you do much more than get it tightish over some pieces of wood; my thoughts are that it'll never stretch as tight as it was pre painting so was not intending to use anything other than some wood - not proper stretcher bars with the wedges - its a beggar of a size anyway.
It's what I've done before, but just wondered if others would do different.
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Not your average framer
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Not your average framer »

They take the canvas off the stretches, but the surplus canvas has already been cut of after stretching on to the original stretchers, so whats left for gripping with the canvas stretching pliers, so it can be stretched again? The unfortunate answer is not a lot and there is no easy way of getting around this without spending extra money to put things right. Customers who bring us hong kong oils as holiday sovegners with no margin left to enable the canvas to be stretched already have the expectation that we can re-stretch their oil for a very minimal cost, probably no more than £20. Being realistic about this, £20 is not a reasonable, or realistic level of money to cover the time and materials to make a half decent job of undertaking a job of something that has been wrecked beforehand.

Jobs like this are a recipe for losing money and that' should be recognised from the very start. Spending an hour, or more to do a job like this, for about £20 is crazy. I know that many of us don't want to turn away loss making jobs like this, but if we are here to make even a minimal income, where is the opertunity to even break even on a job like this at a price that won't upset the customer. Sorry, but some jobs are totally crazy and will lose you money. Like everyone else, I get customers who bring these jobs into me too. I start by telling them that the people who sold them the oil painting have not left enough margin to grip with the canvas stretching pliers. At this point, it is good to show them the canvas stretching pliers and a scrap bit of stretcher bar to show them the problem. It is then possible to discuss other options and consider how to make something that started off with problems, might be made to come out right.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Justintime »

Reminds me of when I bought some Thai floor cushions in Bangkok. I thought it would be much cheaper to buy them unfilled, post them home and do it myself...
Half a day to locate a supplier of cotton wadding by the roll. Hours each to stuff them and hours of sewing them up...lesson learnt!
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Not your average framer »

I find that sticking the painting down on to MDF, is really straight forward and easy. My local hardware shop cuts 6mm, or 12mm MDF to whatever size I need and it the cost is not to bad. I can usually do everthing else within half an hour and most customersd are happy with that. I can normally get the price for the cut to size MDF over the phone and quote the customer an exact price while they are in the shop.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
poliopete
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by poliopete »

Like Jan and other framers of a certain age, I framed and sold hundreds of H K oils through the 80's :D

I remember seeing them for the first time at the NEC, a mountain of them priced from around £2 for the small ones and so on. Initially, I framed them on stretchers but soon realised that much less faff and the easier way was to stick them down under a backing and in a ornate swept frame. I know I should be ashamed of myself but the weapons of choice was Evo-stick impact and hardboard :oops:

If I remember correctly the frames where imported from Czechoslovakia and the supplier was based in Bradford and part of the Magnolia group. They sold from the shop window like hot cakes, sometimes in hours. I too, used a linen slip and a three inch frame. Like other framers who got in early they generated a lot of profit and having some framed in this way, displayed for sale in the shop window, made it easy to charge a premium for framing when customers came in with their own.

At one stage we framed these for two other shops. :D

Those were the days, "takes a big sigh"

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prospero
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by prospero »

They're still doing them. :lol:
81048725_2666090346800321_929717672050950144_o2.jpg
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Steve N »

poliopete wrote: Wed 19 Feb, 2020 7:25 am Like Jan and other framers of a certain age, I framed and sold hundreds of H K oils through the 80's :D

I remember seeing them for the first time at the NEC, a mountain of them priced from around £2 for the small ones and so on. Initially, I framed them on stretchers but soon realised that much less faff and the easier way was to stick them down under a backing and in a ornate swept frame. I know I should be ashamed of myself but the weapons of choice was Evo-stick impact and hardboard :oops: We just used to drymount them

If I remember correctly the frames where imported from Czechoslovakia and the supplier was based in Bradford and part of the Magnolia group. They sold from the shop window like hot cakes, sometimes in hours. I too, used a linen slip and a three inch frame. Like other framers who got in early they generated a lot of profit and having some framed in this way, displayed for sale in the shop window, made it easy to charge a premium for framing when customers came in with their own.

At one stage we framed these for two other shops. :D

Those were the days, "takes a big sigh"

Peter.
When I first started framing way back in 89, it was for a chain of shops, we had them sent down from head office for each shop to frame when we had, just had to make sure you never had two of the same on the wall at the same time, even mirrored images, saw one once with Typhoo as in the teabags, as a signature :Slap: . They were also the staple diet for those ' Fine Art Sales' at local hotels at the weekends, or the poor art students coming round knocking on your door trying to sell their course work :giggle:
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prospero
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by prospero »

They supplied a demand. They are what they are and nothing more.
Problem is that people were conned into thinking of them as an 'investment'. And thinking that just because they
were hand-painted they are originals. They are very far from being original. Many are copies from Western greetings cards and such.

I saw an outrageous advert in a Sunday supplement one day. It went along the lines of, "Due to the fall of communism many talented
Chinese artists can now sell their work in the West, Now's your chance, etc, blah, blah, spiel......." They had actually build the canvases
into a key-case. Charging a huge price. That was as close to misrepresentation as any ad I've ever seen. Lying is the word. :lol:

Many naughty scamps in tourist areas used to take photos of local views and send them to one of the factories, ordering a few 100
paintings. The naughty thing was they ordered them unsigned and put their own signature on. Then they would set up an easel in a
public place, put a canvas on the easel and sit there pretending to paint. Tourists would flock around and when one asked "Is that for
sale?" the scamp would say that it wasn't finished yet but he had some more scattered about him. Flog them one (he would have loads
stashed in a van out of sight) and if they ever did twig onto the con they were not likely to go back to Portugal or wherever to complain.
The 'artist' would no doubt not stay in one place too long. :P Me, I can spot them at 100 paces.

You can usually id HK oils from the pale blue grounds on the unpainted areas of canvas. It's an anti-fungal treatment. Also if the painting
was too near the top or bottom of the bundle (bale?) there will be strapping marks.

Having said that, they came in various grades. The higher grades are more skillfully executed. You can send a photo (family portrait) and
have it turned into a painting. BUT however well it's done it will never be 'an original'. :|
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Not your average framer
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Re: Wavey Canvass

Post by Not your average framer »

I could never understand why customers wouuld pay so much for something of so little real value.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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