I get asked this a lot! Usually by folks who’ve seen canvas prints at HomeSense or Walmart, and wonders why they'd pay more for a paper print from us. Fair question!
A canvas print is an image printed onto canvas fabric, stretched over a wooden frame. You hang it as-is. No glass, no extra frame. A paper art print, a giclée print, is printed with pigment inks on cotton rag paper. It's what museums and galleries use. It's what we make. They're not the same product.
Why we chose paper and never looked back
I'll be honest. I don't love canvas prints. I know that's a strong opinion for a blog post that's supposed to help you decide, but I'd rather just tell you what I actually think.
Canvas prints have a look. You know the look. You've seen it in hotel lobbies, dentist offices, and above the TV at your aunt's house. Big, shiny, slightly blurry close up. There's nothing wrong with that if it's what you want. But it's not what I want my paintings to look like.
The weave of canvas softens everything. Fine lines get fuzzy. Subtle colour shifts disappear. If I spend three hours getting the exact right grey on a crow's wing, I want you to actually see it. I've held prints of my own work on both surfaces. The paper version looks like my painting. The canvas version looks like a memory of my painting. Not terrible. Just... not right.
Cotton rag paper holds detail and reproduces colour more accurately. The blacks are deeper. The textures are sharper. When you get close to one of our prints, you see more, not less. That matters to me.
The cheap canvas problem
Most canvas prints people encounter are cheap. Like, really cheap. The ones at big box stores are printed on thin material with dye-based inks on a machine that's optimized for speed, not quality. The colours are oversaturated. The canvas sags after a year. The edges where it wraps around the stretcher bars start cracking. You've probably seen this happen.
These prints give canvas a bad reputation that it maybe doesn't entirely deserve. A properly made canvas print on good material with pigment inks can look decent. But those cost about the same as a quality paper print, and at that price point, paper still wins on colour accuracy and detail.
What paper gives you that canvas doesn't
Options. A paper print can be framed however you want. Black frame, oak frame, no frame. Lean it on a shelf. Clip it to the wall. Swap the frame in five years when your taste changes. A stretched canvas is what it is forever.
Paper prints also last longer. We use archival pigment inks rated for over 100 years on museum-grade cotton paper. With basic care, these prints will outlive both of us. Canvas longevity is a gamble. A good one lasts decades. A cheap one starts looking sad in a couple of years.
And honestly? A framed paper print just looks like art. It looks like something someone chose with intention. Canvas prints, especially the mass-produced ones, look like someone needed to fill a wall and grabbed whatever was on sale. I know that's blunt. But you came here for the real answer.
When canvas makes sense
I'm not going to pretend canvas has zero uses. If you want a big piece for a room where you need something up fast and you're not precious about it, canvas is fine. Kids' playroom. Airbnb. Above the treadmill in the basement. Places where convenience matters more than fidelity.
But if you're buying art because you actually love the image and want it to look the way the artist intended, paper is the answer. That's why every gallery, every museum, and every artist I respect uses it. It's why we use it.
What we actually print on
We print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag and Epson Hot Press, depending on the piece. Both are 100% cotton, acid-free, and feel like actual art when you hold them. We test every print on our Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 before anything goes to production. If the colours don't match what I painted, it doesn't ship. That level of control matters to us and it shows in the final product.
So yeah. We're paper people. And we think you should be too!
Want to go deeper?