The canvas grain is subtle and does not degrade the image quality, and the sheet will cut easily with trimmers or scissors but will not tear or fray.
But, best of all, the image is waterproof - even when printed on a regular inkjet printer. That means that you can tint or paint over art or photographs, wash them with a toning glaze, or use any wet or dry media to create a painting on the print - to enhance or complete what was printed. Parts of the print can be gessoed over and different elements added.
We have used this canvas in collages, on art dolls and in handmade books. A million more ideas await only the time to experiment and we will be exploring the possibilities in upcoming issues of Now What? magazine, in order to share our findings.
Cre8it Waterproof inkjet canvas does take special handling when fed to your printer. Detailed instructions are given below. If you follow them, you will avoid jams and the waste of ink and the canvas.
The following Sample Prints show how well our canvas can take the “wet” stuff.
The least expensive product comparable to this canvas that we could find, retails for $37.70/ten sheet pack, and is not available in any smaller packages. So, we made a decision not to wholesale our product - allowing us to sell it to our retail customers at the best possible price. And though it is still as precious as gold, it is worth every penny - and then some.
Cre8it Waterproof Inkjet Canvas
$7.50/Three Pack (Letter Size Sheets)
Above:
This photograph was printed as a sepia duotone on an Epson C-82 printer with water resistant Dura-brite inks. When it was put into a collage, the tone was not an exact match, so an acrylic wash was used to warm the tone (wash was smoothed out to an even coat but was put on very wet as shown). Even with a heavy application, the image did not smear or run. (See the entire project here: “Grace and Innocence”, Now What?, Volume 6)
This is a photograph which was turned into a “painting” using PhotoShop and Painter software. It was then printed on waterproof inkjet canvas using an Epson 880 with no special inks. When dry, I ran water over it at the sink to test whether the red or black ink would run or smear, as they are the colors most likely to do so. No effect was seen. When using regular inks, however, I usually give important prints 24 hours before trying to drown them, even though prints dry to the touch in seconds as they would on any inkjet paper. It is not necessary to wait if you intend less extreme wet media than a running faucet.
Cut some feeder sheets from regular weight inkjet compatible paper.
Cut 8.5" x 3" pieces from a letter size sheet.
Mark the center point at 1.5".
Attach a feeder sheet to the top of the canvas sheet, using double stick tape on the back side. Leave 1.5" of the feeder sheet showing above the top edge of the canvas. Line the two pieces up as perfectly as possible so there are no edges to catch.
Feed the sheet to your printer manually -feeder end first. It will go part way in and stop. Whether or not you will need to use the regular or heavyweight (usually called “envelope” setting) on your printer will depend on the printer.
To test without wasting a piece of canvas, press the paper feed button a second time to cause your printer to feed the sheet all the way through and out again. If it doesn’t do that smoothly, you will need to change to the envelope setting and try again.
In your computer software, move your image(s) down the page 1.5". Your printer will now see the top of the feeder sheet as the top of the page to be printed and you do not want your image to print partially on the feeder sheet. Moving the images down 1.5" will assure that it prints on the canvas and not on the feeder.
You must also “move” the bottom edge of the paper for the printer. Do this by changing the page set-up in your software to legal instead of letter. Otherwise, the printer will quit printing when it has reached 11" from the top of the feeder sheet - which will actually be 1.5" short of the bottom of your canvas. This could result in a cut off image even though there is still room on the canvas. Changing the page set-up to Legal size gives the printer permission to keep going.
When your canvas sheet is successfully printed, remove the feeder sheet and return page set-up and software settings to normal.
The canvas will dry quickly, but we usually give it an hour or so before assaulting it with water.
