How to Frame a Painting on Canvas: Float Frames, and When to Skip the Frame

♦ ♦ ♦ JUNE 09, 2026 | 3 MIN READ How to Frame a Painting on Canvas: Float Frames, and When to Skip the Frame At a Glance A stretched canvas does not go in a normal frame. It goes in a float frame, which holds it from behind and leaves a small gap so the painting appears to hover. Build or buy the frame slightly larger than the canvas, fix it with offset clips, and keep an even quarter-inch reveal. And before you frame anything, check whether the painting was made to be framed at all. A framer’s first question about a painting on canvas is the one most people skip: is it a stretched canvas or a panel? A stretched canvas has depth, an inch or more of stretcher bar standing off the wall, and that depth is why it will not sit in the lipped frame you would use for a drawing. It needs its own kind of frame, and the good news is that the right one is the easiest to live with. How to frame a painting on canvas: the float frame The float frame, or floater, is built for exactly this. Unlike a normal frame that overlaps the front edge of the work, a float frame is a shallow tray that the canvas drops into from the front, sitting just inside it with a narrow channel of open space all the way around. As Logan Graphic describes it, the canvas “appears that the canvas is suspended or ‘floating’ within the recess of the frame.” Nothing covers the painted surface. The frame holds the edges without touching the image. The reveal gap is the whole aesthetic. A quarter-inch of open space around the canvas usually looks best, with one-eighth to one-quarter inch the working range. Even all the way around is what reads as intentional. Uneven, and the eye catches it instantly. How to make or build a frame for a painting on canvas You can buy a float frame sized to standard canvases, or build one, and the build is genuinely a weekend job. The frame is constructed slightly larger than the canvas so the reveal gap exists by design. Four lengths of float-frame molding (it has an L-shaped profile, a back ledge and a low front lip), cut to length with mitered corners, glued and joined. Mounting is where offset clips do the work. These are small Z-shaped metal brackets made for the job: one end sits flat on the back of the stretcher bar, the other rests on the frame’s back ledge, bridging the depth difference between canvas and frame. Mark, drill a pilot hole, drive a short screw. To get the gap even before you fix anything, wedge folded paper or thin foam-board scraps between the canvas and the frame on all four sides, then clip, then pull the spacers. That is the entire trick to a clean reveal. A float frame holds the edges and never touches the image. That is exactly why it suits a painting . When NOT to frame a canvas at all Here is the painter’s part, and it is a real decision, not a style note. Many contemporary oils are painted around the edges. The tacking margin, the sides of the canvas, are worked as part of the picture, color carried over the turn deliberately so the