A classical old-style frame need not look old or traditional, and some of us just love adding colour to our homes. There’s no better way to re-vamp your tired looking artwork or mirrors, than to add some colour to the frames.
As the younger market are becoming more and more art-savvy, they are also looking for framing which is not typical, old-fashioned or traditional.
The shape of this frame is gorgeous, and was given a fresh and modern look with a splash of colour.
New Opening Hours…as of October 2009, our opening hours are changing…
Now open Tuesday to Friday 10am -5pm. All other times are available, by appointment.
Although it’s just about October, I still have time to squeeze in one of our latest creations for the month. Tom Bourne from Mix 102.3 has done it again with an outstanding design. I had a hand-crafted experimental frame lying around, when it caught Tom’s eye. “That frame looks like it’s gone through hell…” he said, “How about we come up with a tribute for our War Heroes?”
World War II was declared on 3rd September 1939. That was a Sunday here in Adelaide. We were able to source the Adelaide Advertiser from 5th September 1939, with the headline “Australian Reactions At War Declaration”. Everything else was bought on eBay – the un-named, original medals, collar badges and even the photo of this unknown soldier, taken by an Adelaide photographer.
When Tom Bourne (Senior Creative Writer for Adelaide radio station Cruise 1323) brought his treasured Port Power Grand Final photo in to me a few weeks ago, no one would have expected the response we have had from this frame – overwhelming!
Click here to listen to what John Dean of Cruise 1323 had to say….
How was it done? A raw cassetta frame for the outside (our exclusive profile) was gessoed and water gilded in silver. The outside edge and sides – painted black. The team colour – teal – was then painted over the top of the silver in the middle section and then sanded back to reveal the silver leaf underneath.
Inside this frame is a Tassie Oak box frame painted black. The photo is float-mounted onto a black silk backing board, and the silver name plate is also float mounted, higher, and over the top of the photo – so it looks completely suspended in mid-air – the “Bourne Prymke Over Float”. Tru Vue’s Museum Glass was used as the glazing material.
In this 3D box frame, the image is mounted onto 5mm fomecor, with the edges cut straight. The edges are painted with a high gloss ceramic -finish paint. It is then mounted onto a stained black silk matboard (25mm all around) which has a gorgeous grain running from left to right, this same board is used as the backing board and the lining of the box frame. There is an exposure of black suede (5mm) underneath the silk mount.
The three layers are then float-mounted with a 10mm spacer underneath, so it looks suspended in mid-air inside the deep box frame (40mm deep).
Even though this frame is very simple, it is designed so that the focus is purely on the image, and the interest is in the detail of the texture - black on black – high gloss ceramic, the sheen of the silk and the very matt black of the suede.
The frame is hand coloured, with the paint applied sheer – so the colour varies with the colour of the grain in the timber, and reflects the many shades of green in the photo.
The frame is finished with bee’s wax, and for complete clarity, my favourite, Tru Vue’s Museum Glass.
The front of the completed frame.
This was an interesting piece to frame – an old Pablo Picasso dated 1959 and it’s printed on both sides. Keeping in mind that it had to be framed to conservation standards (totally reversible) we also wanted it double-sided (exactly the same on both sides) and free-standing.
I cut two single mats (Bainbridge 100% cotton Alpharag), both exactly the same size. I used mylar corners to mount the artwork to one mat, so there is no adhesive touching the piece anywhere, and then sandwiched the art in between the two mats. With UV glazing on both sides and a spacer in between the glass and the mats, this frame was chosen firstly because of it’s mottled grey colour, but secondly because of it’s relatively shallow rebate.
The back of the frame, before the final stand piece was attached.
I then joined the two frames together - with two small dowl pieces at the top. The stand is in two pieces, the first level is cut with the side edge as the base. The rebate made a nice shelf for the frames to sit neatly in. Inside the stand, two pieces of square dowl are glued to the sides of the stand, all the way across, and then screwed into the bottom of the double sided frame – making it easy to remove if need be. The final piece of the stand is placed over the top, and held securely in place with framer’s points.
This beautiful Limited Edition silkscreen print by David Bromley features his partner Tori Dixon-Whittle. This special edition of only 20 (they’re usually 40), it is numbered 10/20 and has a beautiful gold leaf background.
As with all of our framed pieces, it is matted with 100% cotton boards (because they’re naturally acid-free), and glazed with 99% UV Conservation series glass, so it won’t fade or deteriorate.
I would always recommend that if you are going to invest in good art, please don’t cut corners with the framing. Whatever you do, protect your investment so that it lasts!
Price framed $3,500.00
Click here to go to Inside Out’s article on David Bromley.
Click here to go to our David Bromley page and online store.
This gorgeous vase is from the Thomas Ross Collection, hand crafted in the UK. It is one of a set of four. Made from an antique plate, this etching is hand coloured in gold and very matt black, but is also available in blue, pale green and terracotta.
The frame is our latest creation – hand crafted to match, water gilded sgrafitto frame in rich gold and black, aged and then waxed. Of course, as with any of our frames, it can be made to order in any colour combination.
Price $595.00
So many people walk into my gallery and say “Wow, I love that hanging system!” Seriously, they do! But no one loves it more than I do! I change my gallery around every week or so, probably because I can. The Gallery System makes it so easy for me. I can move the stainless steel cables across the tracks and they can be added directly into the tracks – you don’t need to slide them in from the ends. The push button hooks are easy as well, no tools are needed, just push the button on the top and they slide up and down on the cables.
