Yes, you can iron a canvas to get creases out. On a paint by numbers canvas there are two rules that matter more than the ironing itself: work from the back, and keep water and steam away from the printed side.
Here is the method, why the creases are there in the first place, and what to do if you would rather not put an iron near it at all.
Why Canvases Crease
Two different causes, with two different outcomes.
Rolling leaves a gentle curl and soft waves. These come out easily and often disappear on their own if you leave the canvas flat under a weight overnight.
Folding leaves a hard crease along a straight line. This is a compression of the fibres, and it never fully comes out. It is why the way a kit is packed matters so much: a canvas shipped rolled in a tube arrives flat, and one folded into a small flat box arrives with a cross of creases through the image.
We ship ours rolled in a tube for exactly this reason, and it is the thing our own reviewers mention most often. It is worth checking before you buy any kit from anyone, because it is invisible in a product photo.
The One Thing to Get Right
The numbers and outlines are printed on the front of the canvas. Heat and pressure will not disturb them; water and steam can.
So: iron the back, never the front, and use no steam. If you want to introduce moisture, mist the back only, where there is no ink to lift. That is the resolution to the advice you will see elsewhere telling you both to mist it and to keep water away from it — which side you are on is the whole difference.
How to Iron a Paint by Numbers Canvas
- Lay it face-down on a clean, flat, dry surface. A towel on a table works well.
- Set the iron to low or medium, steam off. Not high. Canvas is usually a cotton or cotton-blend weave over a primer layer, and the primer will scorch or gloss up long before the fabric does.
- Put a cloth between the iron and the canvas. A tea towel or pillowcase. This is the difference between flattening a canvas and ruining one.
- Keep the iron moving. Steady, gentle passes. Resting it in one spot is what leaves a shine or a scorch.
- Work from the middle outward, pulling the canvas gently taut with your free hand as you go.
- Let it cool flat, under a book or two, before you do anything else with it.
If a crease refuses to go, mist the back lightly with a fine spray, wait a minute for the moisture to spread, then iron through the cloth as above. Damp fibres relax more readily than dry ones. The non-iron routes are covered in getting wrinkles out without heat, and they are safer on a printed canvas.
On a plain painting canvas with nothing printed on it, none of the water restrictions apply and you can use steam normally.
Flattening Without an Iron
Slower, and enough for most rolled canvases.
- Weight it. Lay the canvas face-up under a few large books, or between two boards, and leave it overnight. This handles roll-curl on its own.
- Reverse-roll it. Roll it loosely the opposite way to how it arrived, hold for a minute, unroll. Repeat a few times.
- Mist and roll. Face-down, mist the back lightly, smooth it out by hand, then run a rolling pin across it with moderate pressure. Leave it flat to dry completely.
- Stretch it. The most permanent fix. Pulling the canvas taut over stretcher bars removes most remaining waviness — see our guide to stretching a paint by numbers canvas, and check the blank margin first, since kit canvases are often trimmed close.
There is more detail on the non-iron methods in flattening a paint by number canvas.
If the Painting Is Already Finished
Harder, and worth being cautious. Dried acrylic has very little give, and it will crack before the canvas moves much.
Do not iron a finished painting. Heat will soften the acrylic and it will stick to whatever it touches.
What can work: lay it face-down on a clean dry surface, mist the back lightly, ease the canvas flat with your hands rather than pulling hard, and let it dry completely under a weight. Then mount or stretch it, which is what will actually hold it flat.
Ripples in a finished piece usually come from the canvas never having been taut while you painted. If you are working on an unframed canvas, stretching or taping it down before you start saves the problem entirely.
In Short
Iron the back, low heat, no steam, cloth in between, keep moving. Mist the back only if you need to, never the printed front. And if the canvas arrived folded rather than rolled, temper your expectations — you can soften a hard crease considerably, but you cannot remove it.
Our designs are in the catalog, all shipped rolled rather than folded, and Custom Paint by Numbers makes one from a photograph of your own.
