Hello!
I found some large fragments of rather quality, thick, dyed (ochre-colored), Italian linen for a good price. I did not purchase it yet.
Is it safe to use dyed linen to create a larger stretched canvas?
Even if primed and gessoed adequately, what risks are there with the dye in the linen, in terms of long-term degradation?
It is far thicker than the raw linen available to me at present, so I thought I would ask.
Thank you very much!
This with the dye potentially migrating through multiple layers of the work is troubling.
Perhaps I will just buy one yard, and see what happens. Although, might this migration occur in a decade or more, and not in a more immediate time frame? Maybe it would be best to abandon the project and stick with raw linen.
Thank you very much for your response, mkinsey.
Depending on the artist’s objectives, it might be an interesting and possibly fruitful experiment but I don’t think it would be easy to know for sure if it would perform well without actually trying it.
There is a wide range of fabric sold as ‘linen” and not all meets the standard for use as an artist’s canvas. Linen offered as top-quality artist’s canvas typically contains what is graded as “line” fiber, the longest, most lustrous bast (stem-derived) fibers from flax cultivated to reduce branching and yield a long, strong stem. Lower quality fiber can be separated from that harvest, or can be derived from a crop grown for seed and fiber. That fiber will be shorter and will produce a slubby, irregular fabric that’s not as strong. The lowest quality flax cloth, “sacking” is a rough utility cloth used for feed sacks, insulation, and building material filler. Fabric that is dyed for wearable textiles and upholstery may be coated or otherwise treated in a way that would make it less receptive to painting grounds. Dyes may migrate through top coatings, and could persist through paint layers.
I’m not a conservation professional, so please don’t accept this as authoritative, but to the best of my knowledge, dye migration can occur over time, not just in the early phases of painting. I think it’s a good decision to look for something without an unknown colorant.
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