Canvas Buying Guide

At Harris Moore Canvases we know that the foundation of great art begins with the best quality Ready Made Canvas. Ten years experience gives every artists canvas we produce the refinement of quality and manufacture that your paintings deserve – and buying a stretched canvas from us ensures that you can give the maximum time to your painting, and with fantastic delivery times you can get painting even sooner.

Timber

Working closely with locally based suppliers we have carefully chosen only the best quality timbers with which to work. Currently 90% of all our canvas stretchers are made with a hardwood: Tulipwood (American Yellow Poplar), known for its suitability for making canvases due to its resistance to warping, its inherent straightness and low emissions and its sustainable production.

“Sustainable Hardwood Information
A longstanding tradition of sustainable forest management, bolstered by a strong legal framework for environmental conservation, has ensured that our forests continue to thrive and expand. Indeed, hardwood growth has consistently exceeded harvest for the last fifty years, during which time the inventory of hardwoods standing in U.S. forests has increased by over 90%.

The U.S. hardwood industry's superior environmental track record not only provides for the health and future of our forests, waterways, and wildlife, but also produces consistent grades and allows for constant and reliable shipments. For more information on the sustainability of the U.S. hardwood resource, from biodiversity to harvesting and regeneration to waste minimization, visit the "sustainability" section of AHEC Europe's website .”

Statement by the American Hardwood Export Council

Stretcher Bars

Every canvas we produce is made to the highest standards. We make and assemble every element of your order in our Birmingham workshops.

Canvas Fabric & Stretching

We offer a wide variety of Canvases and Linens, giving you the widest choice to suit your painting style and budget.

Our Cotton Duck canvas is sourced from the UK and from India to guarantee the highest quality fabric. We highly recommend our 12oz cotton duck as the most popular choice for economy and quality, and this is available on both our Gallery and Professional Ranges. Weighted as 12oz before being double primed with universal primer, it has a close and consistent weave, a good tooth and semi absorbent gesso primed surface.

We also import highest quality fabrics from Italy. These range from 10oz polycottons used on our Studio and Premium Readymade canvases to Pure Superfine Cotton and beautiful Linens used on our Professional Range.

Every single canvas we make is stretched by hand to ensure the best finish and tension for each material. You will find our canvases are folded and stapled neatly on the reverse, giving each one the feel of a beautifully crafted piece of furniture and invariably adding value to your work.

   

At Harris Moore we offer a wide range of pre defined popular canvas sizes across several ranges.

We offer Winsor & Newton canvases at up to 50% off RRP

Our Premium Readymade Canvases are made by us to the same exacting standards as our Gallery Canvases, using Tulipwood and an excellent 10oz Italian Polycotton in sizes up to 150cm x 150cm giving you Harris Moore quality at exceptionally good value prices.

Our Ready Made Gallery Canvases give you easy access and quicker delivery to our most popular range of stretched canvases, in our best selling sizes. Here you will find canvases up to 2m x 2.5m in 45mm deep primed 12oz canvas.

Bespoke Canvases

We pride ourselves on being able to make any size canvas you require up to 2m x 3m. We can make them in Inches or in Centimetres in whole or part increments up to an accuracy of 4mm.

Our most Popular Gallery canvases are based around 25mm, 45mm or 70mm deep frames and stretched using 12oz cotton duck. Compare our prices to our competitors and you will see that like for like we offer exceptional quality of choice and craftsmanship and higher quality materials at a comparable price.

Our Professional Canvases are simply beyond comparison. Outside of a few specialist manufactures you will find it hard to source canvases of such high quality. Using extra wide Tulipwood stretcher bars (25mm x 60mm or 40mm x 60mm) they are of superior strength and stability. We also offer a wider choice of fabrics, starting from 12oz Cotton, then an unrivalled Superfine Cotton, finishing with excellent Medium and Fine highest quality Italian Linens. At very good value prices these canvases are a truly good investment for the Professional artist.