Matting and Framing

The right mat and frame can and should enhance a piece of artwork. On the flipside the wrong mat and frame can ruin that same piece of art. Taking the time to chose the correct matting and a good frame is well worth the time and effort.

I'll be matting and framing The Poppy for myself. This piece will hang in my home on a pale yellow wall. I've decided I want a square format for the finished hung piece. Since this painting isn't square(approx. 11" wide by 10 " high) the mat will have a 3" border on the bottom. The sides and top will have a 2" border creating the square. I know it may sound odd but it works. For the frame I've chosen two that are simple and contemporary with a matte black finish. I haven't decided how wide I want the actual frame so I've done a virtual frame up with two different width frames which I'm posting here. Then I can look at them both together for a few days and decided which one works best.

The Poppy

This one tested my patience more than any other painting I've ever done...in any style. If my paper had been larger I would've chosen to do this in a much larger format. Also after it was completed (I thought) and I had removed all the frisket I decided the center of the flower was not dark enough. The frisket didn't want to stick well the second time around. Even after repeated burnishings I still had some bleed under it. I had to resort to a few dabs of opaque white to correct the problem. This finally became a quest! I was going to complete this or die trying. It's not my best effort to date but it's certainly been a learning experience for me. This taught me I have the stick-to-it-enuffs to stay with a difficult project and secondly, to get it right the first time!

Virtually Framed

I just had fun matting and framing my last piece online. You gotta love the internet!

Daffodil wip

Here's the finished painting. I may decide to

do a little more tweaking or chalk this one

up to experience.

I've masked off the finished cup and

started working first on the background,

then on the foliage and the lowest petal.

I started with the cup first, then masked it off

before completing the rest.

The sketch. I wound up tweaking this a little as I went along.

I enjoyed Mehaffey's technique so much I thought I'd try it again on another subject. I've used the same reference for this daffodil with graphite and really loved the results. This was much more difficult than the waterlily and I'm not entirely sure I like the results. It's all part of the learning experience, though.