Toile

Une toile vierge marque le début d'une nouvelle aventure créative. Explorez notre sélection de toiles en lin, coton et jute, chacune offrant des caractéristiques uniques en termes de tissage, de texture et d'élasticité. Ces toiles sont adaptées à toutes les techniques de peinture, pour répondre à vos besoins artistiques.


About the Varieties of Canvas

About the Varieties of Canvas

Canvas is the traditional painter’s surface. An artist’s canvas is typically made from a tightly woven linen or cotton duck material stretched over a rectangular or square wooden frame. The material is prepared with size (traditionally rabbit skin glue) which has the dual purpose of tightening the material over the frame and protecting it from the oil of the paint. Over the size are several even layers of white primer.

Why do painters enjoy working on stretched canvas? There are several reasons. There’s the spring caused by the tension of the stretched canvas which bounces as you put your loaded brush to it. This makes the whole painting experience feel even more alive. Then there is the whiteness of a freshly primed substrate. You can rely on this to optimise the luminosity of your translucent colours. When paint is pushed across the textured weave of a canvas, it grabs onto the ridges of the warp and weft, creating the most subtle undulations in saturation which maximises colour vibrancy.

Ready-made stretched canvases allow painters to get on with their painting. We sell canvases by Belle Arti, Loxley, Winsor & Newton, and our own Jackson’s canvases. You also have the choice between universal or oil-primed surfaces.

Whole canvas rolls (as well as canvas by the metre) and the most resilient wooden and aluminium stretcher bars allow you to make the highest quality painting substrate to your very own specifications. We sell everything you’ll need, from Italian, French and Belgian linen to canvas pliers and accessories, rabbit skin glue, oil primer and acrylic primer, and priming brushes. All of our stretcher bars fit together with pre-cut grooves, so there’s no need for expert carpentry skills.

Of course, you may not feel the need to stretch canvas at all. Canvas panels and boards offer the rigidity of a flat surface that has a layer of canvas fixed to one side, so you can enjoy its weave. Canvas pads contain sheets of primed canvas that have been glue-bound. Both options offer a lightweight alternative for plein air painting and experiments in paint.

A Guide to Canvas