Canvas is not one thing. The five surfaces sold under that name behave differently enough that the choice changes how the paint goes on, how long the piece lasts and what you pay.
Here is what each one is for.
A short note on how we got here
Painters worked on wooden panel for centuries. Panel takes oil beautifully, but it is heavy, it is limited in size, and it splits and warps as the wood moves. Stretched fabric solved all three at once: lighter, larger, rollable, and it could be taken off its frame and moved. From the sixteenth century onward it became the default in European painting, and it has stayed there.
What it gives up is rigidity. Fabric flexes, and a flexing surface is why paint layers on canvas need to stay flexible themselves, which is one of the reasons acrylic suits it so well.
1. Cotton duck
The everyday canvas, and the one most stretched canvases in an art shop are made from. Cotton duck is a plain, heavy weave with a visible texture, sold by weight; twelve ounce primed is the common working standard.
It is inexpensive, easy to stretch, takes priming well and has enough tooth to hold paint without fighting the brush. It also has more give than linen, which means a large stretched cotton canvas can go slack in humid conditions and want re-tensioning.
Use it for: almost everything. Practice, study, finished work you are not selling into a collection.
2. Linen
Made from flax rather than cotton. The fibers are longer and stronger, the weave is finer and more even, and it stretches less over time. Painters who want an exceptionally smooth surface for detailed work, or who care about the piece lasting a century, use linen.
It costs several times what cotton does, and it is harder to stretch well because it is less forgiving of uneven tension.
Use it for: commissioned or archival work, and fine detail where the weave of cotton would show through thin paint.
3. Canvas panel or board
Canvas glued to a rigid card or hardboard backing. Cheap, completely flat, immune to punctures, and it stacks without anything touching the paint surface.
The drawback is that it looks like what it is. A panel has no depth at the edge, so it wants framing to look finished, and the cheaper ones can warp as the glue ages.
Use it for: studies, small work, anything that will be framed behind a mat anyway, and painting away from home.
4. Canvas paper or pads
Heavy paper embossed with a canvas texture and primed. It is paper pretending to be canvas, and it is honest about it.
For practicing a technique, working out a color scheme, or teaching a class, it is ideal and it costs almost nothing. It is not a surface for a finished piece, because paper flexes, yellows and does not take a stretcher.
Use it for: practice, exercises, testing colors before committing.
5. Canvas by the roll
Unprimed or primed fabric bought by the yard, cut and stretched yourself. This is the cheapest route per square foot by a wide margin, and the only way to get a size nobody sells.
It requires stretcher bars, a staple gun, some patience with corners, and gesso if you bought it unprimed. Our note on what gesso actually is explains why that priming step is not optional: raw fabric will absorb the binder straight out of your paint and, with oils, will rot over time.
Use it for: large work, unusual proportions, or if you paint enough to make the setup worthwhile.
Weave and weight, in plain terms
Weight is how heavy the fabric is per square yard, and it stands in for thickness and durability. Lighter canvas is fine for small work; a big canvas on light fabric will drum and dent.
Weave is how coarse the texture is. A coarse weave grabs paint, breaks up a brushstroke and suits loose, gestural work. A fine weave lets a small brush move cleanly and suits detail. Neither is better; they suit different pictures.
Primed or unprimed is the one that matters most. Primed canvas is coated, usually with acrylic gesso, so it is ready to paint on. Unprimed is raw fabric and needs two or three coats first.
What is under a paint by numbers design
Our kits are printed on pre-primed cotton canvas, which is the sensible choice for the job. It takes the printed outline crisply, it has enough tooth to hold acrylic without the paint sliding, and the weave is fine enough not to break up the edges of small numbered regions.
Two practical details follow from the material. Ours ship rolled in a tube rather than folded, because a fold in a primed canvas cracks the coating and leaves a line through the picture that never fully relaxes. And the unframed canvases are trimmed close to the printed edge, which means there is not enough spare fabric to stretch one over a wooden frame afterwards. Mounting or taping it to a board works; stretching it does not. Our guide to framing a finished canvas sets out the options.
a practical guide for adults covers the rest of the differences between the framed and unframed versions.
The framed sizes are supplied already stretched on a wooden frame, so that question does not arise.
Which to buy
If you are learning, buy a pad of canvas paper and a few panels and do not think about it again until you have filled them. If you are painting something you intend to keep, buy a stretched cotton duck canvas. Buy linen when you have a specific reason to, and buy by the roll when you have started resenting the price of stretched canvases.
And if what you want is a picture on the wall rather than a surface to solve, our designs are in the full collection, printed and ready to paint.
