more homemade frames/mattes

[colin]

Heres one I did a couple weeks ago

The matte is an extra deep one -- i really like how this looks, although they are a pain to make. This one is made of 2 inch moulding with a 45 ripped on one side, and then a matte is cut to fit exactly and glued on top so the whole thing is nice and wide . I generally paint my mattes some nuetral color like this one, rather than having to keep a million different matteboards around .

Frame itself was made from lumberyard oak and finished with a blue/grey liming wax made by Liberon .

I like how this looks so spare and simple - i think it sets off abstract paintings like this really well and doesnt compete visually with it .

[Helen Zapata]

This looks really interesting Colin. So the mat is actually glued on top of wide molding and then inset into the outer frame? Is the inside angle (of the mat part) *painted*? It does have a nice contemporary look to it.

I have a huge abstract that I did for my husband. Framing it was time consuming.. trying to get the right look. I finally framed it with a frame within a frame. The inside frame has a silvery abstract look, and the outside framed is a curved simple rich blue laquer. The final feeling is almost like a frame with a liner, and it's perfect for this piece. It's interesting how many kinds of looks you can get by stacking frames over frames.

Helen

[colin]

Hi Helen,
Yes - you have to paint the whole matte cause it's bare wood at that inside angle . The hardest part is cutting the opening in the matte to fit exactly, but if you assemble the wood part first, flip it over and trace with a pencil onto the matte you can get close enough . Then I sand the matte edges flush with an emory board ( like the ones for fingernails ) .

I guess really it would be easier to do the whole thing with a wide peice of solid wood though, now that I think about it ...

It is fun to stack different frames, H ! Sometimes you can get surprising results even with two different style frames . A lot of times too you can buy old beat up frames for dirt cheap that still have good liners or fillets .