Picture Framing

I went to a local art and craft store to pick up a frame for that small sunflower painting. It's a 9 x 12'' and neither Wal-Mart or target had anything that would fit so I headed to Michaels and they only had Three choices in the ready made. I had a 40% off coupon and wound up paying fourteen dollars for the least objectionable of the choices.

If I buy canvas panels these days I always buy eight by ten inch ones because you can pick up frames at WalMart for as little as two or three dollars.

I was SHOCKED that the framer had NO idea that you DO NOT put glass over an acrylic painting. He's talking about having something to protect it and NOT getting the fact that I've been doing this for 45 years and STILL have a couple of my paintings from back then that have been through hell and back, stored in all kinds of conditions and still look great. I keep telling people that acrylic paintings are a lot tougher than they think, it's just too bad that no one listens.

Over the Edge

Here’s a fun alternative to painting around the edge of a canvas. This frame had an old, stained linen liner so I painted it to match the painting. The effect really makes people look twice and was a great way to recycle that frame.

This painting is several years old and I pulled it out of storage to share the border technique with a friend. The timing was interesting because I'm working on a much larger Iris painting now. It looks like my style has changed a bit over the years but I always come back to my old favorites in new ways. No wonder people think artists are crazy-I've been painting the same flowers for decades and I don't think I'm finished with them yet.

The Remains of the Day-torn painting saved...bits of it anyway

In the course of trying to work in a studio space under construction a couple of paintings have been punctured, torn and otherwise damaged. Today's solution for this one was to cut the canvas off the stretchers, remove the damaged bits with scissors and attempt to save the rest. It left me with 2 tiny paintings I was able to pop into frames from my husbands Aunt Evelyn. The project didn't cost me anything and was quite an improvement. Thanks Evelyn, I couldn't have done it without you!