paintings prints and stuff

Pollarded willows, charcoal and pastel in limed ash frame or black frame, framed it's about 3ft Selecting frames is difficult.   The frame can make or break a picture - but it also has to fit in with a buyers house. I notice this makes for a huge difference in opinions on framing between the US, UK and the continent when discussing framing with friends.  American friends always seem to go for dark dark wood, continental friends like more ornate frames, in England we tend to go for pale, minimalist framing - it so much depends on the surroundings in which they are to be hung as well as the image itself. Originally I had framed the piece above in limed ash with an antique white (pale cream) mat/mount but wasn't at all happy with it.   I hadn't thought enough about it.   The drawing has a lot of darks with compressed charcoal as well as deep colour, is 'heavy' and the frame didn't stand up to it, seeming too pale and insubstantial.   The pale limed a...

copyright Vivien Blackburn Katherine asked me to show how I frame work, so .... here goes :) This is how I framed the big mixed media and pastel abstracted flower. The frame is over 3ft square and the mount was either 4 or 5 inches wide - I think it might have been 5 with 5.5 inches at the bottom. It could even have had a wider mount (mat) - but the framing costs got a bit much! My framer taught me when I was starting out that it pays to have an extra half inch at the bottom to stop the 'falling out of the frame' look that you can get if the mount is equal all the way round. I don't use coloured mounts, just antique white - a soft creamy colour. I usually frame in limed ash - again a pale neutral colour that lets the painting be the key element. By using one type of wood they all look right together in a show. The widths of the frame may vary but the 'look' is the same. I never frame work on canvas. I use gallery wrap canvas and paint the edges - usually in a colo...