Kat Johnston

Tag: canvasses

  • Sketch: Lincraft responds.

    Kat Johnston Sketch – look… I’m running out of witty lines. Or even smart ones. You’re just going to have to deal with… this!Kat Johnston Sketch – look… I’m running out of witty lines. Or even smart ones. You’re just going to have to deal with… this!

    None of this has anything to do with the sketch – we’re ignoring it today and moving onto the other stuff.

    The other day I wrote a bit of a rant about Lincraft regarding the state of canvasses they sold me a few weeks ago – an annoyingly sticky, gummy residue was left along with cardboard when I pulled away the packaging, leaving the rather unpleasant job of having to do more work to prep the front of the canvas for painting. Although I did pick them up on sale, it still left me feeling rather grumpy over it all. After all, you buy a pre-prepared canvas, you expect to be able to use it straight out of the plastic without having to worry about doing more work or worrying if it is going to work at all. I may have been a little harsh, but I do tend to get that way when it comes to being overly annoyed over things that are as they should not be.

    So this morning I awake and undergo my regular daily schedule: reluctantly open eyes, crawl from under the covers, go downstairs, check e-mail and so on – my rant already quite forgotten. I have a fairly short memory at times and there were more concerning things to worry about… like who was going to make me a peppermint tea for breakfast. With barely contained surprise, between the spam and Facebook notices I noticed a contact form result in my inbox… from Lincraft.

    I have a new-found respect for Lincraft now. There are a lot of businesses not yet utilizing the plethora of opportunities currently available to monitor the buzz about their company online, let alone respond to it – Lincraft has. With a sincerely worded apology for the faults of the product and an assurance that it was an old line, the whole experience feels a lot… better. As if going back to get a canvas from Lincraft again tomorrow maybe wouldn’t be as bad an idea as it would have been yesterday, and as if they do take the whole customer satisfaction and product quality thing seriously (at least on a corporate level).

    So I guess my post today is about giving credit where credit is due. Thanks Lincraft, for harnessing the power of ‘teh internets’ (and probably Google Alerts) to respond so quickly and personably to the problem I had with that product. It is appreciated.

  • Sketch: Note to self, don’t buy canvasses from Lincraft, even when desperate.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: a boy, with quite a haircut… or lack of it. That is all, move along, Sir.

    I’ve come to a few conclusions today. They are as follows:

    1. I just cannot paint with the tv going. Or with a dvd playing. Or anything else that requires more concentration than good ole fashioned music of a variety that makes me smile. There are many things I can do with the background noise of a good cop tv drama. Painting is just not one of them.

    2. I find it devilishly hard to work on a painting while my husband is home. It just doesn’t work. He wants to ‘watch’ or ‘be in the room’ or… well… something. Something loving and kind and adorable, but nonetheless frustrating (even if he’s doing absolutely nothing at all). Love you sweetie, but somehow, it just doesn’t work.

    3. Even when desperate, despite the fact that they’re on special for half off and they are just the size I need, I should not purchase canvasses from Lincraft. What in the hell was I thinking anyway?

    Lets continue the rant about the third item there, shall we? Yes, I admit it – I often buy my canvasses because due to a combination of laziness and lack of an electric saw capable of perfect mitre cuts, I don’t make my own. That said, I don’t generally make the mistake of buying them from Lincraft of all places – and for good reason. A couple of weeks ago, I was walking through the city, headed to Lincraft to pick up paint. I was out of a couple of colours, and lets face it, paintings are generally pretty hard to do without black and white. Mine are, anyway.

    I decided to have a look throughout the whole store – lo and behold, the canvasses were on special. Funnily enough, I needed some, so thought ‘what they hey? They’re half off, surely that is a deal I can’t pass up!’ How stupid am I? And more importantly, how stupid are they? Who in their right mind uses a stupidly gummy adhesive (for its purpose) to affix a piece of glossy paper to the actual front of the canvas? Uh huh folks, you heard me right. You can’t pull away the stupid piece of paper without leaving a sticky, gummy, obstinate bit of residue behind on the canvas itself.

    Now I realize that the people who generally buy their canvasses from Lincraft are more than likely not in the game of producing fine art (no offence to those who do, mind you), but come on! From the very second that someone tries to tear away at your piece of useless self-promotion, they’re having to rub away at the canvas to get rid of adhesive that shouldn’t have been on that part of the canvas in the first place. Even the people producing dollar store canvasses have worked out that you can affix a piece of paper with the relevant details by folding a few corners, and if necessary, affixing to the edges which aren’t generally used as a display portion of the paintable surface.

    So I post this now – as a warning (and as a general rant. I like to rant now and then). For god’s sake, go to a cheapie store and buy your canvasses there over getting them at Lincraft. At least you might start off with a fully paintable surface when you do.