Wall Art: Amazing Artwork With No Frames!

There's a revolution happening in interior design: wall art. Printed on canvas, with an invisible frame, wall art is the contemporary way to display prints.

I'm sure we've all been the proud owner of a guilded, gold picture frame at some stage in our lives. In fact, until recently we didn't have much choice in the matter. Gold is nice, of course, when on a piece of fine jewellery. Or on your Christmas tree, perhaps. We're not convinced that it's always right for displaying contemporary prints, however.

Traditional frames add their own character to a piece of artwork, inevitably changing how it is viewed in some way. This can make it difficult to pick the right frame for a print, as well as one that will look good in your room. If you want to change your picture at a later date, you're stuck with the frame.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and these problems are solved with Canvas Republic wall art! No longer do you have to buy an expensive print, and an even more expensive frame to display it. Now, the print and frame are harmoniously combined as a stunning piece of canvas wall art.

The artwork now takes its rightful place at centre-stage, with the frame doing its important support work behind the scenes. Your beautiful Canvas Republic wall art will hang boldly on the wall, viewable in three dimensions.

We think it's high time to cast aside the artistic anachronism of the tradtional frame and embrace the new revolution in wall art... Join the Republic today!

The Future of Our Perspex Art Range

Canvas Republic are committed to creating amazing artwork and supplying our customers in record time. Inevitably, this requires some changes to our products and We feel that we will better placed to serve our customers by focussing on our growing canvas art range.

However, we still want our customers to be able to access similarly high quality acrylic artwork. As the number of suppliers offer acrylic artwork grows, it becomes more difficult to ensure the quality of your purchase. Therefore, for the first time, we have decided to approve and recommend another retailer that shares our high production values.

Four Blank Walls were one of the original suppliers of Perspex Art in the market and share our passion for craftmanship. We have seen the high quality products they offer and would be happy vouch for their superb pieces.

Please see our perspex art page for more details...

Kids Canvas Prints Coming Soon...

OK, so you've got the living room, bedroom and hall beautifully adorned with Canvas Republic artwork. What about the nursery and kids' room?

We're now creating a vibrant range of designs that kids and adults alike will love. The range will feature captivating characters from some of the world's best illustrators, and you'll even be able to personalise this vivid range with your child's name or a message.

Bored of the standard kids imagery and movie characters found in the shops? We'd love to hear your suggestions for this exciting new range, so please get in touch with your ideas for subjects and colour schemes you'd like to see!

Crunch, Shmunch: Canvas Prices Lowered Today!

Regular readers of our news page will know that we've been busy behind the scenes in recent months. We've moved to a larger premises, and we're now delivering your canvas prints quicker than ever before...

One of our key goals has always been to provide great quality and value. The improvements we've made to our efficiency and the extra space we now have mean that we're now able to pass these savings onto you and actually lower our prices!

Now that's something you don't hear too often at the moment!

These price changes became effective today on single panel and three panel canvas art, and you can now get a 5ft x 3ft print for £69.99... outstanding value!

This isn't a temporary sale, although inevitably, the cost of materials has been rising. We hope to maintain these prices as long as we can for you but we would urge you to get in now to avoid disappointment... they might not last forever!

Check out the online shop for the latest prices...

Choosing Canvas Art Colour: It's In Our DNA!

We don't mean to be rude, but you are a primate. So are we, and it's very useful for choosing the colour of your canvas art!



One benefit of being an higher ape, apart from being (in most cases) highly intelligent, is that we are very sensitive to subtle differences in colour. Specifically, we have trichromatic colour vision, which enables us to distinguish red from green. Very useful if you're deciding between our Valencia I and Valencia II canvas prints, for example! It also means we're really good at picking between subtle reds and oranges.

The reasons for this speciality are still debated amongst biologists. It was long held that this enabled us to tell the difference between ripe and unripe fruit. Now, it has been found this type of vision also enables us to easily detect blushing and fear in the faces of mates and rivals. However, there may be an alternative...

Let us throw the Canvas Republic hat into the ring here and posit a third theory. Choosing the correct canvas art in the perfect colour is a strong, primal urge amongst modern humans. The desire to choose a beautiful stretched canvas print, in a stunning colour that coordinates perfectly with an interior is a powerful and instinctive drive.

We speculate that our subtle colour vision evolved much more recently than scientists think, probably since Canvas Republic have been creating vibrant and stylish canvas art.

This trait has enabled humans to better style their homes with impressive canvas prints. A home adorned with amazing artwork is a sure sign to rivals and mates alike that its owner is a prosperous, powerful and ferile individual, with exceptionally appealing genes!

So you heard it here first. Humans have recently evolved to appreciate the subtle toning of our exclusive range of canvas art! Why not get ahead of the competition and choose your own custom colour scheme? Most of our designs can be recoloured to your own colours, and we can help you pick if you're unsure. Email us for more details.

As for the theory, we won't hold our breath for a Nobel prize...

Our Secrets Revealed: Why Our Prices Are Still The Lowest!

We're often asked why we're so much cheaper than practically all the other canvas art companies in the UK. On our Live Chat service, for example, people regularly query the price of our large canvas prints and three part sets particularly, and wonder if there's anything inferior about the quality. The answer is always a resounding "No!"

We decided to write this article to reveal some of the reasons that we're able to offer such great quality canvasses whilst keeping prices down.

As part of our own product development, we regularly research the prices and materials used by other companies to make their canvasses. This includes the odd anonymous sample, of course! We find this is the best way to cut through the hype and misinformation that unfortunately still plagues the market.

We see lots of canvas art websites using tacky, fear-based marketing. We're sure you've seen them too:

"Make sure you don't buy from them, they print with ink that evapourates when you look at it!"

or

"Make sure you don't get a canvas from X, they don't use our patented magic varnish that protects your canvas from evil for XXXX years..."

It's disappointing to still see this sort of thing because it creates a general mistrust of everybody, and is often used simply to justify exorbitant prices.

As our customers know, we hate this approach, and prefer to offer full information about our products and how they are made on the website. The quality and construction of our pieces is well documented with the information and articles we provide on this news page, as well as our Quality Guide and Quick Guide. This allows anyone to make an informed choice for themselves, without being badgered into (or out of) anything.

We know. You're probably now thinking "this is all very well, but you promised secrets!" Well, there are a number of reasons why we are able to offer such high quality canvas prints at our trademark low prices...

Perhaps the main reason is our established infrastructure. Since our inception, we’ve grown steadily and now we work from our 5500 sq ft. facility in Leicester. This space allows our team to create more pieces each day whilst better organisation and efficiency leads to higher quality standards.

This growth also allows us to buy in more materials such as canvas and frames, and this buying power allows us to negotiate lower costs. We import directly from the best manufacturers so that we don’t have to rely on the stocks of UK suppliers. Passing these savings onto our customers benefits everybody in the long run.

With the odd exception, all our artwork is designed in-house, so we don’t have to include hefty artist royalties in the final price. Whilst our designs are exclusive and you won’t find them anywhere else, we don’t believe in charging a gallery price tag. Some may charge more for limited editions, but we’re not convinced that this increases value.

So now you know! We’re confident that Canvas Republic make the best quality, best value canvas prints available, so why not see our online shop for more details?

All You Need to Know About Sending Us Photos

As you can imagine, we're sent lots of photos every day and we're used to working with a range of images. Because of this, we are sometimes a little guilty of taking for granted that our customers know exactly what and how to send files to us!

One of the main concerns our customers have is whether their image is of sufficient quality to make a good canvas print. The image files we receive come from many sources, including digital cameras of all types and scans, and so vary in quality enormously.

Generally the larger the image, the better the print. Most images from digital cameras are much smaller in size than the canvas print they will be made into.

Unfortunately, judging whether an image will make a good quality print at a certain size is not as simple as just checking the file size. Many factors in how the image was created and how it was subsequently saved affect the overall quality and suitability for printing...

File Type: The format in which the file is saved. Formats such as JPEG use compression, which is a method for making the file smaller and easier to send.

Compression: The greater the compression used, the lower quality the image. Some types of compression give better results than others. High compression is easily recognised as blocky "artifacts", especially at the edges of detail in the picture.

Resolution: The total area or pixel size of an image can be expressed in a number of ways. You may see images referred to in sizes such as 1280 x 1024, which is the height x length in pixels. Size can also be measured in real world units such as inches or centimetres.

DPI: Dots Per Inch is linked to the image size. It refers to how much detail is saved per square inch of image. 72dpi is the standard for images that should look good on a monitor or the web. However, a 6 x 4" image will print smaller than this at 72dpi. Therefore, the standard DPI for printing at full size is 300dpi.

Interpolation: As most photos aren't as large as the desired print size, or at 300dpi, they must be enlarged. Digital enlargement requires the computer to stretch the pixels in the image apart, and then fill in the gaps with 'guessed' pixels.

Most popular graphics software is capable of interpolation, although most give unsatisfactory results at anything other than minor enlargements. This is because of the quality of the guesswork when filling in the extra detail depends on the quality of the interpolation software.

Imagine taking a photo of a book from a foot away. The book would fill the frame and even with a modest camera, you would be able to read the pages of the book. Now imagine taking another photo of the book from 20 feet away. The book would now be a tiny part of the photo and you wouldn't be able to read the words.

A piece of software like Photoshop could stretch the blurry, tiny book so it was the same size as in the first photo. However, it would have to make an approximation of what the words should be, which wouldn't be as accurate as taking a nearer photo.

This is why we ask our customers to leave any enlargements to us, rather than use software like Photoshop to artificially enlarge the image to a bigger size. We use specialist interpolation software to obtain the optimal result possible from the original image.

To complicate these quality issues even further, many popular photo album and email programs apply their own compression to images, reducing them in size and quality for easy sending.

As a quick rule of thumb, images over 1mb in size should give a good quality print at most canvas sizes. However, for a more accurate assessment, you can always send us your image so we can let you know whether it will be work as a Photo On Canvas...

Seen Our Square Canvasses?

Rectangular artwork, whether it is displayed portrait (tall) or landscape (wide), is an eminently popular format. It's great for large living room walls, and to make a centre-piece above a sofa or bed.

But have you considered a square piece? Square format canvas art has a symmetry in both directions, allowing for some creative display options on the wall. Many of our abstract square canvasses can be orientated in different ways and combined with each other with spectacular results.

We have chosen coordinating two-tone colour schemes and designs, so you really can mix and match them easily.

Why not try hanging two or three in a vertical line in a hallway, or a block of four to make a larger square in a kitchen area? The possibilities really are endless when you consider that we can also redesign any of our other canvas art into squares, even with your own custom colours...

Please see our square range for more details...

New Cascading Set Sizes

We've been asked a few times for a smaller version of the huge 92" span cascading sets and have added a brand new size.

The new cascading set size has a total width of 72", with each panel in the set measuring 12" wide. This smaller size provides a great way to have the look of the larger cascading sets on a smaller wall.

Please see the 5 Part Set gallery for more information...

New Customer Testimonials & Reviews Page

When we write about the canvas art we make, we really try to capture how great they look in real life. But then we would, wouldn't we? Perhaps we should really let our customers do the talking and let you know what they thought of their new Canvas Republic canvas prints...

To give you an idea of what our customers think, we decided to create a testimonials page for some of the feedback and reviews we receive regularly from our customers by email. We fully appreciate that a lot of people don't believe testimonial pages, and we have seen a lot of very suspect ones on our travels around the web (we'd really love to say who!)

However, we hope you'll be able to distinguish ours from the fakes and have included as much information as we can publish without intruding on people's privacy. If your comment appears but you would prefer it wasn't published on the site, please contact us and we'll remove it straight away.

As always, we welcome your comments and feedback, so let us know what you think of your new canvas art! For now, please click here to see the reviews and comments...

Proud Supporters of Breast Cancer Care

In November of last year, Laura Williams of Breast Cancer Care Cymru approached us about supporting her fundraising efforts for a Pink Ball charity event.

We were proud to support the event with a canvas art prize, and are delighted to announce that the Pink Ball raised £5001.25 for an important cause.

Breast Cancer Care is the UK's leading provider of information, practical assistance and emotional support for anyone affected by breast cancer. Every year they give direct support to over 22,000 people with breast cancer or breast health concerns through their helpline, person-to-person support and other direct services.

The charity is contacted for free almost two million times a year through their publications, website and outreach work.

Laura has informed us that after the success of last year’s event, she will be holding another this year. We’re delighted to be supplying a canvas art prize again this year, and if your business or employers would like to support the event, please contact Laura directly.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to charity.

Canvas Art Edge Types

One of the options on our Photo On Canvas product is edge type. This refers to how the sides of your canvas print are finished.

Perhaps the most popular option is the full Photo Wrap. This is when a portion of the edges of your image make up the sides of the finished canvas print. Photo Wrap really enhances the three-dimensional effect of canvas art.

When processing your image for photo wrap, we take into consideration whether there is anything important at the perimeter, such as a face. Many photos are taken close-up, and if this is the case, it can mean that a forehead or a chin may be wrapped around the sides of the piece; something that most find undesirable! If this is the case, a photo wrap may not be possible.

An alternative to the Photo Wrap is to have Solid Edges. Here, the photo only makes up the front face of the canvas, and the sides are made a solid colour such as white, black, grey, etc. This option also gives the piece a classy, refined look.

Visit the Photo On Canvas page to find out more...

Keeping Your Canvas Art Tight

You may well wonder what those strange little wedges are that come with your canvas art frame...

These wedges are to tension the print and we tap them into the stretcher bar frames in order to fully tighten your canvas print before shipping. The wedges work by pushing apart the unfixed corners of the frame slightly, making the canvas taut.

As with most woven materials, canvas won't stay this tight indefinitely and may relax a little over time. You may find after a year or so that your canvas art needs to be retightened slightly. Therefore, when choosing your canvas art, beware of non-adjustable, DIY frames; you may end up with a relaxed print in the future!

Our frames are easily adjustable with the supplied wedges. For occaisional retightening, place your canvas print face down on a soft, flat surface such as a carpet. Then simply tap the ends of each wedge lightly with a small hammer. Be sure not to over-tighten; a few light taps will normally suffice. Voilà!

For more information on the high quality frames we use, please see the quality page for more details...

How to Choose Large Canvas Art

Something a lot of our customers ask us is about size and scale. Purchasing your canvas art online gives the benefits of a wide range and excellent pricing, but it's sometimes difficult to appreciate how the different sizes will look in your own home.

Canvas Republic offer a huge range of different sized wall art, so it's now possible to pick the perfect size for your space.



To make this process easier, we added a sizing and scale diagram to the website. This diagram shows an average large sofa with a number of our popular sized canvasses above it.

The guide really gives you a good idea of scale and helps you to make the right choice of large canvas art for your rooms...

Track Your Order Progress Online

You can now track the progress of your order online with our new Order Tracking tool.



Using the tool is easy. All you need to enter is your Order Reference number, which can be found on your Payment Confirmation, and your email address.

The tool will then tell you what stage your order is at in seconds! The Order Tracking tool can be found on the contact page...

New Photo On Canvas Options!

Photo On Canvas is a personalised product and there is always scope for bespoke sizes and options...

We've found that many of you are looking for more adventurous options on your Photo On Canvas purchase, and 5 part sets are becoming more and more common as a request.

To cater for those who have longer, panoramic photos that would look great in this format, we've added a number of new options to the Photo On Canvas section. The monster 5 part 24 x 36" set should create a stunning center-piece in the largest rooms.

As ever, these options are eminently affordable, and are processed and finished to our exacting standards. Please see the Photo On Canvas page for more details...

Orders Now Despatched in 48 Hours

We're now despatching Canvas Art orders in 2 working days!

One of our main goals in 2008 was to improve our despatch time. We're always keen to hear your feedback, and we found that our customers were often delighted with our prices and quality, but would love to have received their order quicker.

In light of this, and our continued growth, we recently made the move to much larger premises. This has enabled us to increase our capacity, and create more canvas prints per day.

There are certain necessary exclusions from this super-quick despatch time, including Bespoke Colour Prints, Photo On Canvas, Garden Art and Perspex Art. These products include an element of personalisation and will continue to be despatched in 7-10 working days.

For full details on our new delivery policy, please see the Terms Page...

New Garden Art from our Online Shop

We're delighted to announce the return of our successful Garden Art canvas product to the online shop!

The optimists amongst us will know that June will be bringing us some wonderful British sunshine, and we can all put our umbrellas away for the Summer...



Whether entertaining guests at your barbecue or garden party, or simply relaxing with your family, our Garden Art canvasses are the perfect finishing touch for your outdoor space.

To provide a way of livening up your garden, we have developed an amazing new format to present our range of canvas art outdoors. Any piece of outdoor artwork must be able to withstand the elements in Winter as well as Summer, and we use fully-weather proofed materials that look great!



To find out more about this exciting new product, and how to purchase from our shop, please see the Garden Art page...