Care & Materials

What they are made of, which size to pick, and how to look after them

All twelve designs are printed on the same canvas with the same kind of ink, and hung the same way. Only the drawing and the colours change.

The materials

Canvas: 55% cotton, 45% linen, about 340 g/m², left its natural oatmeal colour. Slubs and the odd darker fleck are part of the cloth.
Ink: water-based pigment, matt, heat-cured after printing. Moon Phases and Aurora have a full printed dark ground; the other ten leave the canvas bare around the design.
Hems: sewn sleeves at the top and bottom for the dowels; the sides are finished edges.
Dowels: oiled beech, 15 mm across, 44 cm for the Small and 64 cm for the Large.
Cord: natural cotton, tied to the ends of the top dowel.

Close-up of the canvas weave through matt vermilion ink, the sewn hem sleeve and the end of a beech dowel — The weave shows through the ink; the dowel slides into a sewn sleeve.

The two sizes

Size	Canvas	Dowels	Weight	Suits
Small	40 × 60 cm (16 × 24 in)	44 cm	about 0.35 kg	A hallway, beside a window, over a bedside table or desk
Large	60 × 90 cm (24 × 35 in)	64 cm	about 0.65 kg	Over a sofa, a sideboard or a bed

Sizes are approximate and can vary by up to 1 cm, because canvas moves a little when it is printed and sewn. The Large is the same design scaled up, not redrawn. Over furniture, hang it so the bottom dowel sits 20 to 30 cm above the top.

The inks

Squares of natural canvas printed with each ink colour in the range — Every ink in the range, printed on offcuts of the same canvas.

Each design uses two to four inks, one screen per colour. Where two colours meet they can sit up to 1 to 2 mm off each other; on Eclipse one ink is printed over another on purpose, and the colour of that overlap shifts a little from piece to piece.

Pigment inks are durable indoors, but any print fades in strong direct sun over time. In our range, violet (Aurora) and vermilion (Eclipse, Barometer) are the least light-fast. A wall that gets afternoon sun through a window is the one place we would not hang them.

Hanging it

Unroll the canvas print-side up and let it rest flat for an hour or two.
Slide one dowel into the top sleeve and one into the bottom sleeve, so the ends stick out evenly on both sides.
Tie the cotton cord to both ends of the top dowel with a double knot, leaving the length you want above the canvas.
Hang the cord from a single nail or picture hook. The bottom dowel keeps the canvas flat.

Everyday care

Dust it, or run a lint roller over it every few weeks. The dark grounds of Moon Phases and Aurora show lint soonest.
Spot clean marks with a damp cloth and a little mild soap, dabbing rather than rubbing.
Creases from rolling drop out within a few days of hanging; to speed that up, take the dowels out and iron the back on a cool setting.

What to avoid

The washing machine and the tumble dryer. The inks survive, but the canvas shrinks a few per cent and the hems twist around the dowels.
Bleach, stain removers and solvents, which lift pigment.
Steamy bathrooms and damp walls, where natural canvas can mark.
Strong direct sun for long periods.