I have had my Canon Pixma Pro 100 for a few weeks now and have been quite busy with it. For years, my wife has suggesting I try selling some of my work. I now have no excuse. I have a shop up on Etsy and am just about finished with the shop on this website. And yes, I have sold a print thank you for asking. Only one so far, but you have to start somewhere. I offer a few prints on some of Red River Paper‘s Polar Luster Metallic. They. Look. Goooodddd. I also offer a 10×16 canvas gallery wrap also using Red River Paper – the blanco canvas matte.
As one might imagine, there are lots of resources for learning how to put together a gallery wrap. Between Red River Paper’s tutorial and the Simply Elegant Gallery Wrap Stretcher Bars sold by itSupplies, making a wrap has a shallow learning curve. In fact, the hardest part was getting everything correct on my printer without burning too many test prints. That’s step one. More on that in another post perhaps. Step two is coating the print with a protective finish. Again, more later.
Steps three through the end are all about the wrap. I decided to start with an easily manageable size. A 13×19 piece of canvas will wrap down to a 10x16x1.5 inch piece of art. For supplies, I need two 16 inch and two 10 inch stretcher bars. itSupplies sells many different sizes individually; you can by a 20 pack of 16 inch bars and a 20 pack of 10 inch bars. Pair that with the corners they sell, and you have a very easy to set up system; the bars fit right into the corners for a perfect rectangle (step three). Add a box cutter, some glue also sold by itSupplies specifically for making gallery wraps, a craft staple gun, and a clean surface, and I’m set.
After setting up the bars, step four is to peel the adhesive protective strips off the bars and line everything up on the back of the canvas. Because the coating I use on the canvas is water based, the canvas tends to curl. I learned quickly that I needed to flatten it to make setting the bar jig up easier. Then it’s just a matter of eyeballing it to make sure the jig is lined up evenly and squarely on the back of the canvas. After that, it’s a quick press down to disengage the bars from the corner pieces. The adhesive sticks right to the back of the canvas which keeps the bars in place.
The corners of the canvas only get in the way and would prevent a cleanly wrapped corner unless they are cut. In step five, I use a box cutter to trim a 45 degree cut from each corner and also to slice a slit right in the middle of the cut from the edge to just short of where the two gallery wrap bars meet. I don’t quite go all the way so I don’t accidentally get white paper showing through on the other side (i.e. the back of the canvas). There are a few more small adhesive strips that hold down the newly cut corners to create that nice folded look.
Step six is when the actual stretching begins. The bars are lying face-down at this point. All that is required to start the stretching process is to roll up the bar on edge with the paper attached. But first I run a string of glue down the length of the stretcher bars on to the canvas. Then, I roll two bars up at the same time and press in a heavy-duty staple (only half way) to hold the bars together.
On to step seven. The Simply Elegant system includes four diagonal support bars that fit into slots in the stretcher bars. Time to add them. I place a little dollop of glue in each slot and slide in the diagonals. After they are set, I use the handle of my box cutter to push in the staples all the way. This tightens the whole system.
The primary stretch is now done. I finish up the project by using my staple gun to secure the excess canvas to the back of the bars and then nail in a tooth wall hanger piece of hardware.
And that’s it. Super simple. I can knock out a single wrap in less than 10 minutes. Less than seven if my 3-year-old daughter isn’t helping! I put the whole print in a nice, archival quality clear plastic bag and add it to my inventory. Want to purchase one? Check out my shop. See the rest of the steps in the slide show.
