Bespoke Picture Framing - Two Paintings in Their Sunday Best
Christening Cup
Oil on Panel 6" X 4"
Silver Vase
Oil on Panel 12" X 8"
Framing. It's a ticklish business.
I hadn't given all that much thought to framing until I had to get these two paintings properly presented recently.
But the experience of getting them framed has shown me that the frame can make or break a picture.
I would never have thought that the type, character, tone and colour of the frame could not just make a difference to the overall impression, but actually affect what you notice in the painting and what your eye skips over. Even affect how the composition works. Scary.
But that's exactly what I found when I went to a framer to get these two done.
Before we go any further with this, lets get one thing clear: There's bespoke framing, and then there's Real Bespoke Framing. What's the difference? Well, some framers, of the common or garden high street variety, will call what they do bespoke framing. What they mean by that is that they'll help you choose a molding from their selection of (probably) machine finished, off the peg examples that best fits your picture.
Then there's real bespoke framing, of the variety that I've just been lucky enough to find. I had these two done at a Bespoke Framers in Surrey, pretty local to me, called Mandry and Norris (or Chris and John once you've got to know them). Their web site may not look like much, and they don't have a salubrious shop front with polished sales staff either. What they do have is excellent service, the highest levels of craftsmanship and an attention detail which I think is pretty rare to find these days. So I'm letting the world (or at least the small part of it that visits this site) know about them. These guys are the real thing, master gilders, and if you live anywhere near them I suggest you give them a try. I've been deeply impressed.
On my first visit, we talked about different types of moldings, from traditional carved to contemporary, and tried a few samples against the paintings. That was pretty interesting for me, and I learned a smattering of framer's jargon so now I feel all clever and that. These two frames are what they call 'primitive' moldings. I know they don't look very primitive, but the word refers to the time that these types of designs were first used. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly when that was, so now I don't feel quite so clever, but I believe that originally they were Dutch and started being used around the 1700's. The ornate carved ones are more from the nineteenth century. Interesting, because since these designs are less ornate, I think that they look more contemporary that the carved variety. But with class.
Enough about moldings. It was on my next visit that things got really interesting. With Chris's advice, I went for white gold leaf. So all that was left was to decide on the colours for the panel sections, which are painted. Chris had already done them by the time I got there, but he then spent the whole of an afternoon with me, trying different colours directly on the frames, with the paintings in them so I could see exactly how they worked. We went darker, we went lighter, more colour, less colour.
What really amazed me is that both the strength of the colour on the panels and the tone, even when the changes were very subtle, made the paintings look different. A darker tone on the panel of the silver vase painting made the vase stand out more, and the flowers all but disappeared. A lighter one brought them back. Because the colour in this painting is very subtle, as is the tonal range, it was a hard one to get right. A touch too much colour on the panel and the painting looked insipid, and the hanging flowers at the top left disappeared. That was bad, since they're an important part of the composition, designed to lead the eye back round to the vase again after teaspoon has lead it up to the top of the painting.
When we'd finally decided on the colours (I let myself be guided quite a bit by Chris's greater experience, which seemed the sensible thing to do) it was on to final finishing. I thought they already looked lovely, but this is where the magic happened. The frame for the Christening cup was finished with a dark brown wax over the light grey paint. The effect was subtle, but it gave it a certain warmth and depth, and just added a touch of - well, class. The silver vase panel was finished with clear wax, over which was rubbed some powdered pumice.
These finishing touches were subtle, yes, but they made all the difference, and Chris chose what he thought was the right finish for each one. I must say, the photos don't show these subtleties, and quite honestly don't do the frames justice by a long shot. But this really was a bespoke service. Bespoke in that each frame was finished for the picture it was intended for. The colour underneath the wash of the silver vase painting exactly matches the colour of the darker parts of the vase. It's been covered with a wash, but it still influences the final effect.
A last word on the paintings to close this post. The Christening cup painting is a reworked version of the earlier Dried Flowers and Silver. I'll post some better shots of it soon. The Silver vase is a new one, and I'll be doing a good long post on that one shortly because the approach was very different from usual, and greatly influenced by my experience at the painters' technical course in the US.
The reason that I've gone to such lengths with the presentation of these two little paintings is that I've entered them for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Whether they get in or not, I'm happy that I've dressed them up as best I can, and Chris and John have done a fine job. The rest is in the lap of the Gods.