A Gilded Frame made with Pine.
Posted: Wed 19 May, 2021 9:34 am
The shape of this profile is based on a Morland Frame. That is where you have a deep central hollow and surround it with a high burnished wall. This sort of frame looks especially good around 18th/19th cent. prints and paintings.
And this is how I made it.
The profile is cut from 1 and the half of one, R&H STR2 Pine stretcher. The inner section and hollow was scooped out from one stretcher and the high outer wall cut from the other. Both were then glued together to form the finished moulding.
This can then be called a Stacked moulding.
I used pine because it has a pleasing weight to it and adds some perceived value to the finished frame. You do have to watch it with pine though. It's important to raise up the grain first and then sand it smooth. Otherwise the long grain lines can print through even several layers of Gesso.
With that done the frame was spray Gessoed, sanded smooth and a small string of beading laid along the inner sight line. This all takes a bit of time. But then the customers who buy these frames are happy to pay hundreds of pounds for the time you take making them.
After a couple of thin coats of Bole, the frame is washed and polished and ready for gilding.
Gilding is by water-gilding and then after 24hr. the gilding is distressed and burnished to suit.
The frame is then treated with several coatings of a self-mixed Toning Glaze painted between some layers of glue size.
The last process is probably the most important and perhaps the most elusive. It's here that all the preceding work is judged. If the gilding looks right then the galleries will buy it. If it doesn't, then the work is no better than all the other competitors for the work.
The difference is quite difficult to describe but perhaps the best analogy is the comparison of a new pine board with the creamy brown solidity you see on well scrubbed antique pine furnishing.
And you can of course buy a trial sample of the Toning Glaze from my web-site!