Framing a Millard Sheets Watercolor

Another wonderful California watercolor, this one by Millard Sheets: "Boats of Noyo," 1974, 22" x 30". The bold and colorful watercolor has all the presence of an oil painting, warranting our framing it close (an 8-ply gasket mat and lined rabbet, along with Museum Glass, keep it archival). The spirit of the painting demanded a simple profile. The quartersawn oak frame is a 3-1/4" wide flattened cove to echo the forms of the boats and soft trees and hills. Flattened form suits both the shallow perspective and artist's approach which is less illusionistic than it is a decorative treatment of the paper as a flat surface. Gilt oak liner.

The view of a thriving craft, and in a beautiful natural setting, sure speaks to me!

Framing Alfred Stieglitz

Am quite pleased with how this one turned out — a little (5" x 6-1/4") print of an iconic New York streetscape by one the great masters of photography, Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946). The frame's 2" wide, in walnut with a bit of Nut Brown stain.

Here's a better look at the profile:

Paul Kratter Wins Plein Air Awards

Paul Kratter is sporting two more feathers in his cap. At last month's Carmel Art Festival, his painting "Rush Hour" (oil on canvas, 8" x 16") was awarded Second Place—a feat topped this month with first prize honors for his "Glory Days" (oil on canvas, 10" x 20") at the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association Best of Plein Air Show! No doubt about it, Paul's clearly established himself as one of California's top landscape painters.

Congratulations, Paul!

Rush Hour

Glory Days

Framing Sam Washburn and Chez Panisse

Pictures that depict frames and finish trim always offer the frame-maker an opportunity to achieve a high degree of harmony and unity between the picture and the frame.

Such is the case with this Sam Washburn oil on canvas — a view of the Craftsman interior of Berkeley's famous restaurant, Chez Panisse. For the 14" x 18" picture we used a 3" Four-Square Basic (done without the usual reveals on profiles of this frame this size) in Honduran Mahogany with a light stain to harmonize. Mahogany square plugs (they appear darker because you see the end grain, which absorbs more stain). The Craftsman-style interior is carried out by the iconic Craftsman mortise-and-tenon joinery in the frame. The otherwise plain profile works not only with the architectural details depicted, but with the loose painting style. If the picture were more tightly rendered and/or had more detailed and finer line work, then a more formal frame, or at least a more formal liner in this frame, would be called for.

Framing James Cosgrove

 A customer recently brought in this little (5-3/4" x 8") oil on board by Glasgow painter James Cosgrove (b. 1939). The stained walnut frame was designed entirely to the painting, with a carved cushion rim around a flat with fine carved flutes. I'm very pleased with the harmony of line and form, as well as color—a rare occasion when black works best with a painting.

Framing Dwight Clay Holmes

We just framed this 20" x 16" canvas by Texan Dwight Clay Holmes (1900-1986) titled "Red Bud".

I was especially pleased with the form of the frame profile as an enhancement to both the graceful use of line in the painting (hence the reeding) and the loose brush work (hence the coarse, wild figured quartersawn white oak as well as the carved convex sight edge element). This frame is similar to one on the Charles Partridge Adams, below, which I wrote about here.

I realize these are pretty similar to the frame on the Louis Apol a couple of entries back. But it's useful to compare three ostensibly similar frames with nevertheless significant differences when considered with respect to the pictures they're on.

Framing Contemporary Photographs--Geoffrey Agrons, 2

A couple of years ago I posted an entry about framing Geoffrey Agrons's wonderful photographs. Here are a couple more we just did.

This first one, "Big, Big Love" is in an exhibit opening this month at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO. It's framed in a No. 123.8 Century Series flat, 3" wide, in stained walnut.

The second example, a still life, is framed in our most basic mortise-and-tenon frame, the Aurora, with a liner that's an ogee with a bead at the sight edge. The outer frame is a nod to the art of the cabinetmaker, while the refined liner picks up the forms and fine lines of the photo.

See more of Geoffrey's work on his site, here.