How I Frame Artwork for an Exhibition

By Cecilia Martin

A “Gallery Frame” is usually a simple L shaped frame in either wood or metal. Many art exhibition criteria call for artwork to be framed in this kind of frame.  Here I am talking about the wood frame that we chose to use for our 2015 Botanical Art Exhibition at Artistic Landscape Designs.

I lay an old towel on my table and place my frame on that first to avoid any damage to the frame when working on it.  Once a gallery frame has been selected the first thing I do is drill a very small hole approximately 1/3 of the distance down, on both sides of the frame back, and attach D rings as shown. I attach a length of picture wire between D rings, threading a small 2” length of shrink wrap (available at electronics stores such as Active Electronics) onto the wire before twisting the wire through the D ring. The wire should be pulled fairly tight. Once the wire has been twisted around itself slip these shrink wrap lengths over the twisted wire. This prevents walls getting scratched as well as looking neat. Remove backing board.

Cut a piece of acid free Foamcore board for your backing the same size as your mounted artwork and frame.

Remove the lightweight plastic that came with the frame and replace with 3mil acrylic (plexiglass) cut to size. I prefer to use the plexi for shows, as it looks as good as glass and does not break as easily. Many shows (such as the ASBA) will not accept glass. I am told that good quality acrylic provides UV protection, and the price is comparable to glass. I have kept artwork under this acrylic for about 7 years now and find no change in the look of it, or damage to my artwork. However I don’t know how it would look 50 years from now! If you are planning on keeping your artwork in the “Gallery” frame once you have found a permanent home for it, by all means change it to regular glass with UV protection Remove the blue plastic film from either side of the acrylic.

I then like to give the frame and plexi a good cleaning. For this I use a regular glass cleaner. There are special anti static plexi cleaners, but these do sometimes leave a film on the plexi which could damage your artwork. Make sure there are no streaks left. Hold it up to the light to check.

I also use a can of “Dust Off” to blow away any small pieces of dust left behind.

Insert your matted piece of artwork behind the plexi, and check again for any specks of dust on the plexi or artwork.

Now insert your foamcore. The thickness of the plexi and foamcore may be more than the original plastic and backing. If it’s the same just go ahead and use your original backing with its’ own attachments. However if there is too much thickness for that, I use glazing points to secure this foamcore for the backing. The important thing is to get an acid free backing behind your artwork. 

Voila!! You’re done. 

You have saved a lot of money in framing costs, and your artwork is well protected. There is an initial investment in a cutting board, sharp knife, straight edge, and a few other tools if you don’t already have them, but once your artwork is framed this way it is acceptable for most shows. If you want a special piece of artwork in a first class frame to go on your living room wall, then you have the option of getting a professional framer to do it, and spend some of the money you saved on doing your own framing for shows!

Painting a tree - the ancient Rock Elm in Merrickville (oil, 36 x 24 in.) by Aleta Karstad

I have just finished the biggest oil painting I have ever done - a commissioned portrait of the largest Rock Elm on record, which lives in the nearby village of Merrickville. In order to capture the relationship of the towering tree and the old red brick mansion, I stood in the front yard and looked up. I took several photos, three of which would be joined for the composite view which I used as reference in the studio. I then sat nearby, writing a journal account of the time and place until dusk. You can read my journal notes at http://www.aletakarstad.com, after the piece that Owen Clarkin (who commissioned the painting) wrote for me on Rock Elms.  

Rock Elms are characterized by thick corky wings of bark on the twigs. The main trunks of the Merrickville tree fork with proper acute angles at regular intervals, setting the dominant rhythm of the tree in an elegant, symmetrical shape - but within the shape of this tree, medium sized branches elbow dramatically at all angles, expressing their individuality, like surprise passages in a symphony by Beethoven. 

I began with a violet-gray underpainting on the 36 x 24 inch stretched canvas, and scratched the lines of tree and house into the wet paint. The tree trunk and main branches were painted onto the fresh underpainting, and next, quickly, came the neighbouring house and fence with trees and bushes, softly blending against the lower sky. I use water mixable oil paint, which dries a little faster than regular oils. I like to add new colours directly into fresh paint, "al fresco" for a soft, integrated look. If I work onto dried paint, the edges tend to be harder, and often require further strokes of the underlying colour to soften them. 

You can see the steps as I developed the painting. Since it was large, I painted the sky in sections with the smaller twigs against it, so that the paint of the sky would still be wet for blending the twigs into - especially the most distant twigs. In the larger image of the finished painting you can see the pale wispiness I painted on the sky between and among the twigs, This was a solution to the problem of how to get the crown to look full of twigs without painting every tiny twig of the many thousands (that would have reduced the brightness and made it look cluttered and fussy). The halo of ghosty twig impressions whiskered into the sky spaces in paler blue was a successful experiment - it filled out the back of the crown to look more three-dimensional! 

I exaggerated the orange of sunlight on some of the twigs of the crown, in order to make a bit more colour contrast up there against the sky. When I do this sort of thing Fred and I call it "red worms" - a trick which we first noticed in the 1970s in a painting of a rushing whitewater river. I am careful to keep my trick at a minimum, so that it does not alter the perceived colour of the subject, but only increases the effect of liveliness and immediacy. Red and orange appear nearer to the viewer, and where the opposite colours of blue and orange lie against each other, they actually vibrate in our visual perception.

Bark texture was important to show, but not everywhere - because when you look at a tree, you don't look at all of the detail at one time. This is hard to explain, but it's part of what makes an oil painting different than a photograph. The painting flows from lights to darks and guides your eye like music on the canvas, understating some things and overstating others to produce the effect of actually being in the presence of the tree. 

At first I was worried that the building would compete too strongly with the tree, or that my angle on it would look strange and distracting, but the towering Rock Elm holds its own in its relationship with the house. It was fun finding reflections in the windows and changing the colours of paint on mulleins and frames according to sun and shadow. I don't paint many buildings, but I always enjoy it! The mansion, built in the late 1800's, adds a sense of "Heritage" to the painting for those who may not already be aware that this Rock Elm, being of a slow growing species, is certainly older than the building, perhaps even twice its age! Owen has a photo of the mansion taken in the 1920's, which shows that its companion tree was almost as large nearly 100 years ago as it is today!

This painting is the first of a series of Elm tree portraits commissioned by Owen, to raise public awareness of notable trees in eastern Ontario. Next will be a large and graceful Slippery Elm by the Ottawa River west of Aylmer, Quebec, and the third will be a huge American Elm in downtown Aylmer. He is also writing a book on the subject.