Merry Christmas

We at Opix would just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and to take this opportunity to thank you all for helping us get off to a great first year of trading. We hope that the New Year brings you joy and laughter.... and more Perspex Art sells for us ;0)

Have an Outstanding holiday.

Opix - The Outstanding Picture Company!

How to stretch your own canvas!

Professionally stretched canvas can get rather costly. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to stretch canvas in the studio, especially with an assistant. It may take a few trial runs to learn how to do it properly, but once an artist is comfortable stretching his or her own canvas, it will seem well worth the effort. In addition to saving money stretching canvas personally, artists will also be able to have better control over canvas sizes, allowing them to create custom pieces.

To stretch canvas, several tools are needed. Start with the stretcher bars or frame over which the canvas will be stretched. If the canvas is going to be large, supporting cross braces will also be needed. The next important ingredient is the canvas itself. Many art supply stores sell rolls of canvas, which should be unprimed for stretching. To secure the canvas, you will require a hammer with carpet tacks, or a staple gun. Finally, a set of canvas pliers greatly helps to stretch canvas, although they are not strictly necessary.

Once all the tools to stretch canvas have been assembled in a clean, dry place, start by assembling the stretcher bars. Make sure that they are snugly connected and square before nailing or stapling them together. You can use a grid or t-square to make sure that the stretchers are square, or you can measure across the diagonals of the canvas to see if the distances are the same. Once you are confident that the stretchers are square, roll out the canvas and cut out a square which is larger than the stretcher bars. The canvas will have to wrap partway around the stretchers, so be with your cuts.

When you stretch canvas, you start from the middle and work your way in, always working on opposite sides. Staple or nail the canvas to the middle of one of the supports, and then move to the opposite side, stretching the canvas as taut as you can get it. Canvas pliers will help you grip the canvas without hurting your hands, and an assistant can hold the stretcher bars and canvas to help you stretch canvas tightly across the frame. Move to the middle of one of the sides and repeat the process to stretch canvas. Then, start working your way along the edges of the supports. When you reach the corners, fold them over neatly and tack them down.

After you have stretched the canvas, you can prime it or leave it unprimed, depending on personal taste. You can either stretch canvas for each individual piece one at a time, or you can devote a day to stretching canvas so that you can stockpile a range of canvases to work with. Either way, keep the materials in a cool, dry place, and do not expose them to moisture or excessive heat. Storing the canvas flat will also help to prevent warping.

Cleaning and Caring for Canvas Art

If cared for properly, a work of canvas art will yield a lifetime of richly textured beauty and detail. To ensure your canvas art remains as beautiful as the day you bought it, here are some care and cleaning tips:

1. Try to hang your canvas art in an area with moderate temperature and humidity levels. Extreme heat, cold, humidity and temperature fluctuations may damage your artwork or cause it to warp.

2. Avoid hanging your canvas art in direct sunlight. Regardless of whether the highest-quality fade-resistant inks are used, when exposed to direct sunlight they will fade over time.

3. If you are storing a canvas artwork, take care not to lean the image against anything — doing so may cause stretching or puckering of the canvas.

4. If you notice a dust buildup on your work of art, you can lightly dust it with a soft, dry, lint-free cloth. Electrostatic dust cloths and feather dusters also work well. You shouldn’t need to dust more than once every few years.

5. Never, ever use water to clean your canvas artwork. Water droplets may bead and permanently damage the canvas.

6. Do not use solvents or cleaners of any kind on your canvas art print.

7. When carrying canvas art, it’s best to hold the artwork by the frame or the outer edge of the stretcher bars. If you loop your fingers under the stretcher bars, you may inadvertently “stretch” the painting away from the stretcher.

Hanging Perspex / Canvas Art – 4 Simple Rules

Deciding on how to display art in a way that is appealing and draws attention can be a daunting challenge for some. Read on as this article provides a few simple tips on displaying art effectively.

1. Art Grouping for an Interesting Touch:
Group the pictures into clusters of two or three. Odd numbered groups suggest a focal point while even numbered groups exude a calming and organized effect. You can transform an even numbered grouping into an odd numbered one, simply throw in a unique but different element - something which complements the rest of the group, but doesn’t necessarily belong to the same family. A mirror or a wall carving would be a good idea. This brings the grouping out of balance, yet makes it interesting.

2. Art and Furniture:
As a rule of thumb, it is always a good idea to first position the furniture in the room before you hang the art pieces. This way you can use the furniture as a guide to the picture hanging height and positioning. Typically, avoid using a picture or a group of pictures that is wider than the furniture piece below it. If they are narrower than the furniture, they should at least be half the length of the furniture. The picture or the group of pictures should not be placed too low on the wall such that it is too close to the furniture, neither should it be placed too high such as to leave an unsightly gap between the furniture and the picture. Ideally, you should leave about an 8 to 10 inch gap between the bottom of the picture and the piece of furniture below it.

3. Hang Art at the Right Height:
Don’t hang pictures too high on the wall. You don’t want your guests craning their necks to look at the art. The standard practice is to hang the picture at eye level. Some experts believe that you should hang pictures 3 to 4 inches lower than where you think it is. When hanging pictures you should also consider the purpose of the room. If it is a dining room or living room that you’re decorating, where guests will be seated most of the time, your eye level should be about 5 to 6 inches above the backs of chairs. In the hallway or stairway, you should place your pictures higher as people are standing in upright positions in these places.

4. Avoid Cluttering:
Finally, when grouping pictures, take note not to position the pictures too close to each other. If the pictures are placed too close, they lose their individuality, and if they’re placed too far apart, they will lack unity.

The Difference Between DPI and PPI

Most people heard the term DPI. In most cases the term is used in the wrong context to express the number of pixels in a photo, the number of dots in a print or the maximum dots per inch a printer can output. A relatively new term PPI was introduced in order to resolve this wrong usage of the term DPI.

PPI: stands for Pixels per Inch. PPI describes the number of pixels per inch in a photo. PPI is a function of the number of pixels the camera’s sensor supports (also known as megapixels) and the size of the photo. To calculate a photo’s PPI simply multiply the page length by its width in inches. The result is the number of square inches on the page. Now divide the number of pixels the sensor supports by the number of square inches. The result is the number of pixels per square inch. All that is left to do is to find the square root of this number. Following is a table that shows the PPI for various page sizes for a 5 megapixel camera.

page size 4X6 - 456 PPI

page size 5X7 - 377 PPI

page size 8X10 - 250 PPI

page size 11X14 - 180 PPI

page size 16X20 - 125 PPI

page size 20X30 - 91 PPI

DPI: stands for Dots per Inch. DPI is really a physical characteristic of a printer. Every printer prints dots that when put next to each other comprise a photo. Each dot has a physical size. DPI is also known as the maximum resolution that a printer is capable of. Low-end printers have lower DPI while high-end printers have higher DPI. DPI is defined as the number of dots a printer can print per inch. For example if a printer supports 1200 DPI it means that the printer can print 1200 dots per inch (on both X or Y axis). When printing it is important to make sure that the DPI is higher or equal to the PPI. If the DPI is lower than the PPI the printer will not be able to fully display the high resolution of the photo. When printing a photo that has a lower PPI than DPI the printer will use multiple dots to represent one pixel. As opposed to PPI, DPI is not relative to the page size. DPI is a fixed number for a given printer.

What is a 'giclée print'?

Giclée (pronounced ghee-clay) originates from the French verb "to spray", and is used to describe a digital high resolution print providing a look and feel similar to that of original artwork. Prints are available on original artists materials such as watercolour paper and canvas. Fine Art reproduction has been revolutionised with the giclée printing process due to the exceptional results it produces. The brilliant colour, sharp definition, and tone give a visual quality, which is eye-catching and captures the characteristics of the original artwork.

The Difference Between Standard Dye-Based Ink and Pigment Ink

Water Resistance
1. The dye in the dye-based ink dissolves in water like sugar does in water completely. 2. Pigment does not dissolve completely. It is more like a flour and water mixture. 3. Because of this , dye based inks flow better and have been the standard in inkjet printers. but the dye will re-dissolve and the ink will flow across the paper if drops of water hit the paper. 4. Pigment ink particles tend to settle into the tiny fibers that make up the paper, As the ink drys the pigment particles get stuck in the fibers. Thus the pigment inks are more water resistent than the dye-based inks. Only about 5 to 10 percent of the ink will re-flow if the paper is hit by water.

Fade Resistance
A. The molecules in dye-based inks are spread out. You might think of dye-based ink on paper as Similar to a beach covered with sand, because of this dye-based ink tends to fade quicker, since all of the molecules are exposed to the chemical and sunlight caused reactions that fade the ink. You may notice fading of dye-based inks exposed to direct sunlight commonly in 6 to 12 months.
B. Pigment particles are similar to large pebbles on a beach, it is more difficult for sunlight and chemicals to react with all of the pigment molecules, since most of them are hidden inside the "Pebbles". Pigmented inks will usually last for many years before fading becomes noticeable.

Print Quality
It is possible to get more 'colour" into pigments than into dyes. Therefore pigmented colours tend to be more vibrant than dye-based colours And pigmented black inks tend to be slightly darker than dye-based inks.

Price
You can't get something for nothing, Pigmented inks cost more to make than dye-based inks, so they cost more.

Usability
Canon generally use dye-based inks 2. Compaq and lexmark use pigment ink 3. Hp use pigment ink 4. Epson use pigment ink in there later model printers and dye-based in the earlier models.

Cast and Extruded Perspex, what's the difference?

Cast PERSPEX™ is the original cell cast product first produced over 60 years ago. It offers better optical properties and craze resistance than extruded sheet and hence is often the choice for applications requiring critical visual performance.

Technically:

In this process the monomer, Methyl Methacrylate, is polymerised in a bulk process. The liquid MMA (looks like water) is first made into a 'syrup' by heating it up in a vessel, adding a little initiator to get the polymerisation reaction going then cooling when enough polymer as formed to increase the viscosity of the liquid to a syrupy state. To this other additives are added, UV absorbers etc.

The syrup is then poured into a cell made of 2 glass plates with a gasket around the edges and placed in an oven to go solid. The syrup helps reduce leaks etc when filling the cell. The Perspex sheet is then split off from the glass.

This grade of Perspex is usually referred to as Cast Perspex or Cast Acrylic sheet. As its made by the bulk polymerisation route the chains of the polymer are longer and the sheet has much better properties than extruded sheet.

Extruded PERSPEX™ is ideal for general glazing applications that don't require optically perfect properties.

Technically:

In this method the MMA is first polymerised into beads in water to make a PMMA moulding powder. This is used in extrusion + injection moulding. These powders are added to an extruder where they are melted and then extruded and passed through rollers to make a flat sheet.

Extruded sheet tend to have shorter polymer chains than cast sheet plus some of the chains are forced into the direction of extrusion unlike cast acrylic where they are mixed up.

Rear Mounted or Sandwich?

So what's the difference between 'Rear Mounted' or 'Sandwich' Perspex art, well here goes!

Sandwich:

Image is placed between two sheets of Perspex. Some times the reverse of the image is mounted to the hidden second sheet of Perspex to stop the image moving. However some people do not mount the image and use the fixings (standoffs) to keep the image in place so that the consumer can change the image in the future using the same Perspex and standoffs.

Sanwich's tend to be Perspex combinations up to 12mm (but usually 10mm) as this is the common limit of most Perspex fixings (standoffs). The most common is two sheets of 5mm Perspex either side of the image, this is because less than 5mm usually result in a sheet of Perspex that is slightly flexible. So be aware if companies offering 2mm rear and 8mm front combos. The thicker 8mm might give a better visual affect to the front of the image but the back could sag away from the image and show ripples in the image if an adhesive of some description is not used.

Rear Mounted:

This method involves the bonding of the image face to the Perspex. This method allows light and colours to interact with the image in a far better way and gives an almost 3D effect. This effect is also enhanced by the use of thicker high quality Perspex and a rear panel is not required.