Generating a lot of paintings means needing a lot of frames. I love going to the framing store and my favorite is The Frame Center in Hanover, MA. It's not just their expansive selection, but the staff are talented artists themselves and offer a keen eye if another opinion is needed during the selection process.
The frame store is not the only place to find frames though. Antique stores invariably have a few frames, sometimes with art in them and often just stacked in a dark corner awaiting discovery. Over the years I have found some really stunning frames this way. The quality varies of course, but if a coating of dust and a bad painting within are the only problems, an effective rebirth may be possible.
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| White Lilie Still Life |
When I came upon one particular old frame recently, I immediately knew that combined with the right painting, the look could really be something different and special. I would customize a painting to the frame, and it would have a three leaf grouping to echo the ornate wooden frame corners. A measurement of the opening revealed it was an odd size, 17.8" x 14.8". I bought it anyway knowing I would be able to use a custom cut panel. I gave the frame a good cleaning and amazingly the carved cherry wood had no scratches or flaws. The only issue was the gold leaf of the inner frame had many worn spots. I had been experimenting with gold leaf in the past year and decide to give the inner frame a try. I removed the inner frame from the carved wood frame and methodically applied my size and gold leaf. I'm certain that a gilding expert would be critical of my work, but it was a big improvement to the frame from its previous state.
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| White Lilies in Blue Vase Early Stages |
The weather in New England in November guarantees being forced inside often and I took advantage of several rainy days to work on this still life. I used my studio still life shelf to set up the silk white lilies. I sketched in my drawing with Transparent Oxide Brown on an MDF board that my husband had custom cut for me. With only two lilies on hand, I set up for the upper blooms and just sketched in the face down blossom on the left.
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| White Lilies Stage Two |
I didn't like the white vase shown in the photo at top of this post, so I substituted a fat round blue vase. The true size of the blue vase was only six inches in diameter, so I was only able to use it for color and shape reference, and improvised on the size, enlarging it for the painting.
I continued to work on the lilies. The gold satin tablecloth for my still life looked flat and lifeless. I attempted to remedy the issue by painting in the edge of the table and the folds of the tablecloth that hung down in front. Much better.
The use of a miniature blue vase and pretending it was large was not easy. In the stage two photo of the painting, the vase looked like it was floating but I didn't know why at first. I copied a version of my painting into a Word document. I then superimposed an oval over the vase in my painting so that it stretched over the vase in the painting and checked the symmetry. What I discovered was that although the vase was symmetric, given the shape of the vase cavity and my "looking down" vantage point, the base of the vase should not be visible like I had it. I returned to the studio and painted the bottom of the oval vase down below the base. I also emphasized the shadow line under the vase.
One other exciting detail was using some gold leaf flakes that were floating around from the frame work as a decorative gold band on the blue vase. The painting was literally made for the frame and vice versa (figuratively).
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