Description
Handmade, Custom Stretched, Claessens Oil Primed Linen No.18 Canvases, expertly hand made to order on our premises at The PaintBox.
Claessens Oil Primed Linen No.18 is a fine to medium toothed linen, slightly rougher in texture and a slightly bigger weave than Claessens No.13, made exclusively from natural materials that are grown, sorted, and processed with the greatest care. Claessens linen canvases are truly natural products, with small differences in their colour, composition, and feel, which can occasionally lead to minute differences in the end result. These however from an artistic point of view make every canvas original and unique.
Claessens Oil Primed Linen No.18 is sized with synthetic glue to protect the fabric from acidic oils, and to lend rigidity to the canvas for ease of stretching. Next, it is primed with Zinc White pigment bound with linseed oil and placed into a drying room for three days to air-dry naturally. Then the canvas is sanded and a coating layer of Titanium White is applied. Finally, the canvas is placed into a drying room for an additional 10 days until it is completely dry.
Up to the turn of the last century, many professional artists prepared their own canvases. As more and more amateurs took up the brush, the demand for canvas prepared by traditional methods grew. In 1906, close to the River Leie and in the middle of the Flax District, Victor Claessens the creator of Claessens Oil Primed Linen No.18 founded a company to produce top-quality artistâÂÂs canvas. To that end, he refined the tried and tested methods that had been passed down from generation to generation.
Almost a century later, Claessens creator of Claessens Oil Primed Linen No.18 is still operating in the original buildings in Waregem. The descendants of Victor Claessens have made a conscious choice to keep a small-scale approach to production and to honour the traditional methods for treating the artistâÂÂs canvas. Nowadays, much of the work is done by machines, but the core of the production process has remained unchanged. This respect for tradition and experience has made Claessens a household name amongst artists, stretching far beyond the borders of Europe.
Browse through our selection of surfaces, shapes and sizes to find the surface best suited to your technique or aesthetic. Consider if the weave of canvas, the grain of a wooden panel or the smoothness of paper is right for your practice, what level of absorbency you need and if you need your substrate to be rigid. Whatever qualities you need we have the information to help you decide what is the right surface for your practice.
We will expertly make this canvas for you using the material of your choice with strongly engineered timber stretchers. The magenta diagrams show stretcher/ bracing configurations: Without a Stretcher; With a Single Stretcher; With a Cross Brace, With a H Brace and the largest oblong canvasses having Double H Bracing.
âÂÂOversizedâ stretched canvas orders, those with two or more sides longer than 160 cm, will need to be delivered by a specialist courier company and will incur an additional location-dependent delivery charge. Once weâÂÂve received your order we will contact you with confirmation of the delivery cost and arrange a convenient delivery date.
Our custom made canvases can take up to 10 days to make, so please also allow for the courier service delivery time to your address. If you require your canvas by a specific date, please email us or call us on 08 8388 7776 and we will let you know if we are able to schedule your canvas ahead of time.
Because each bespoke canvas is made to order, we are unable to cancel orders after they have been placed.
