I agree with Bongolian.
I make my own frames and any small works that I have get a wide frame.
I tried some with adornment but found it was too “busy” and took away from the painting. Hence; keep it simple.
Typically Plein Airs works are quite small.

Dcam do you buy moldings and chop them yourself? Or buy precut?

I’m having trouble finding a place to buy simple plain frames for canvas. (like a discount house or outlet) When I painted 20 years ago it seemed there were more options, which is odd because I thought they’d be more available now because of the internet.

Can you recommend a frame source? (maybe I’m missing something in my many searches)

Cheers,

Sowega: Hi, I buy just about all the wood at The depot or lowes.
I usually get premium pine or poplar. The two stores also have nice decorative trim pieces that I pin nail onto the basic frame structure. I have some good equipment. Miter Saw, Router, Brad nailer, pin nailer, small biscuit joiner for smallest biscuits. I slowly accumulated the stuff over a couple of years. I usually paint my frames as can be seen in the other thread. It takes me about a day to make a decent frame…..worth it.
I also have 4 big sears corner clamps for big jobs. They were $20 bucks each, so…..pretty good quality and strong.
Seems like a lot but in the end a huge savings.

Thanks for this great description of your process. I think I will begin easing into making some simple ones, as I do a bit of woodwork too.

I scouted Lowes/HD and saw their moldings all run around $1 per foot. I plan to paint mine flat black so this should work for me. I think chair rail molding looks good to start; I later noticed that several of the canvas wall frames at Michaels and HLobby were made from what appears to be the same basic generic chair rail molding I saw on the shelf at Lowes. The miters appear to be done simply, flat. I can handle that.

Thanks again for the input.

–SP