Framing without glass

[chaos]

Beyond my knowledge base so hoping you lovely lot will be able to advise please.

A customer wants to frame her mainly acrylic with ink on paper art in a more 'contemporary' way, namely in tray frames, or at least without glass. She is currently experimenting thus;

Firstly I have only been experimenting so far, with paintings I don’t plan to sell.
Secondly I have been advised to use water resistant MDF when I use valued work.
I am coating the MDF with wood primer and gesso in advance.
For adhesive I have tried both transparent wood glue and high quality heavy duty acrylic gel ( e.g. Liquitex).
The art is sealed with Matt varnish (sprayed) and then a layer of Gamblin wax.

Is this suitable? Reliable? Enough protection? The correct materials?

Are there any other methods or materials that you would prefer?

Her work is vibrant and rather lovely & I am fighting the urge to say 'protect it with glass' but I do understand 'her art, her rules'.

[bang]

Beyond my knowledge base so hoping you lovely lot will be able to advise please.

A customer wants to frame her mainly acrylic with ink on paper art in a more 'contemporary' way, namely in tray frames, or at least without glass. She is currently experimenting thus;

Firstly I have only been experimenting so far, with paintings I don’t plan to sell.
Secondly I have been advised to use water resistant MDF when I use valued work.
I am coating the MDF with wood primer and gesso in advance.
For adhesive I have tried both transparent wood glue and high quality heavy duty acrylic gel ( e.g. Liquitex).
The art is sealed with Matt varnish (sprayed) and then a layer of Gamblin wax.

Is this suitable? Reliable? Enough protection? The correct materials?

Are there any other methods or materials that you would prefer?

Her work is vibrant and rather lovely & I am fighting the urge to say 'protect it with glass' but I do understand 'her art, her rules'.

It sounds like she is preparing the surface well enough. However in the absence of a decent panel like birch, dibond or aluminium, I'd coat both sides of sanded mdf with a co polymer emulsion such as gac 100 before priming.

The gel medium works pretty well as a glue.

I've not used the water resistant mdf, but my paintings from 30 years ago are still fine. I also worked at a gallery with a few paintings by Jacob Lawrence on unprimed masonite from the 80s probably... and they were doing surprisingly well, albeit in a climate controlled environment.

Any reason for the wax on top of the matt varnish?

Paintings on paper will always be as vulnerable as the paper. I'd suggest artglass 70, but it is her art.

[chaos]

Thank you for your reply!

I feel relieved you think her prep of MDF is adequate. I will ask about the wax and I will chat about other boards with her next week.

[Gillthepainter]

I have recently done this with 4 x oil on paper paintings.

Not sure about mdf, I never know if it is ph neutral or not, I buy birch trays that are gesso primed and totally smooth.
Apply pva glue to the paper, but not the wooden board. Lay it straight and remove any air with my hands, and then a silicon scraper.
And weigh it down overnight with a heavy board, checking for air blisters periodically.

When totally dry and totally flat, I then smear a very thick coating of cold wax over the picture, and knead it in with my fingers, leaving it to set and to create a protective layer. It can be buffed too.
(Like furniture wax, it protects the surface from knocks, marks and chips).

The result is excellent.
And my reason for doing this is I have trouble selling my very strong coloured paintings when they are behind glass.

[bang]

I have recently done this with 4 x oil on paper paintings.

Not sure about mdf, I never know if it is ph neutral or not, I buy birch trays that are gesso primed and totally smooth.
Apply pva glue to the paper, but not the wooden board. Lay it straight and remove any air with my hands, and then a silicon scraper.
And weigh it down overnight with a heavy board, checking for air blisters periodically.

When totally dry and totally flat, I then smear a very thick coating of cold wax over the picture, and knead it in with my fingers, leaving it to set and to create a protective layer. It can be buffed too.
(Like furniture wax, it protects the surface from knocks, marks and chips).

The result is excellent.
And my reason for doing this is I have trouble selling my very strong coloured paintings when they are behind glass.

The cold wax treatment sounds interesting! I'd like to see the finished result. Do you have any links?

[Gillthepainter]

Sure thing.
I haven't decided whether to frame this one St Ives, or a normal frame which will keep those edges away from the elements. 1 thing, I cannot stress enough to try this out on a piece of unimportant test paper first to get the hang of it.
My biggest fight with glueing canvas or paper to board is unexpected blisters.

With paper, within a few hours, you can prick them with a pin, and get it down again. This is obviously easier with oils and acrylics, as it's invisible from the front.

The primed beech panels cost £5 each 14" x 11". And with panels you do not get curling or bowing.
Cold wax is often on offer, I got a big tub from Jacksons for £15, and it's designed for oil on paper.
PVA glue on the back, I use artist quality, not children's hobby glue. I hope you can see the good seal, including those edges.

Anyway. It does work, with a bit of courage in the process (and that's easier when it's your own work and not a framer's client doing the asking).

[JKX]

I’ve never had anything like that to frame, nor heard of the technique.

An it be cleaned easily, like glass can?

[Gillthepainter]

I'm not absolutely recommending that one paints and frames pictures on paper without glass.
But what I can say is, it can be done. Quite often an artist will make a belter of a picture on paper, but the glass is a detraction.
The only reason I had 4 oil paintings on paper, is after a workshop, and I was left with seascapes that lost their drama behind glass.


It definitely won't take any kind of product on top, JKX, no. A soft brush is fine, and also a dry cloth. I guess a hard brush would make marks on the cold wax layer, despite it having set well.
But once it's on the wall, the picture is fine.
I've had mine on the wall for 6months, and it's still good.
I give it the occasional buff with a soft cloth to check.

And as an experiment, I've just given it a varnish with retouching varnish (retouching varnish can be taken off with turps easily, and take your picture back to the oil layer).
I'll take a picture tomorrow for you, after 24hrs seems to be a good standard length of time for testers.

Let's see if it is still as good as gold on there. I guess the danger might be it will pucker or lift.

This is it after a buff just now on the cold wax layer that's been on for 6 months:



This is it after a retouching varnish just now = shiny:



First impressions, both processes are stable and protective.

[bang]

Beautiful effects there! I like it!

I used to know an artist who encased his paintings in gel medium, in big blocks of the stuff. Must've cost an absolute fortune!! Another used resin.

Lovely techniques and surfaces!

I wonder if laminating the paper to a board using a hot press would work.... of course, this would be best done before the artwork is created otherwise it could get messy!

A techie fat over lean point with the varnish, apologies if you're already aware of it:... varnish will dry to a fairly rigid film over the wax. Wax at thickness will remain subject to movement with changes in temperature. So it's possible the varnish may crack with time over the wax. This could be interesting too though!

[Gillthepainter]

Excellent point about the varnish and wax.
Looking this morning, I'd definitely just use the wax and not use the varnish.

I've never seen a hot pressed picture before.
Do you press it to board? And then it can be framed without glass?

If yes, that seems a far better substantial way to go, if your artwork isn't thickly painted, say for watercolour.
And does the laminate discolour, though.

[bang]

There will be people on the forum that know better than I do.

There are 'conservation' level laminating adhesives but I think the biggest problem is that it's not a particularly easy process to reverse. So it's useful for prints and replaceable items... but not great for original artwork.

[chaos]

Thanks for the very valuable and interesting input from all, especially Gill the Painter!

I feel better armed for a chat with the lovely artist later this week. Every day is a school day

[Gillthepainter]

Every day is a school day

Correct.
Unfortunately for your client, I would say ink is not OK.
Only acrylic, and oil on paper. That's what I'd deduce.

By the way, I'm getting involved in this with a lot of interest, as a student of mine on a workshop wants to know how to do this, and I'm making tests for her for this Thursday. So I was doing it anyway.

I have just made a tester with a 1 yr old ink piece on paper (as in linocut ink rolled through a machine) onto mdf and rather strangely, the ink has lift away from the paper immediately I applied neat pva to the reverse.
It has undermined the work completely, even though it's been happily fixed and keyed to Fabriano 350g for a year. If they are using artist liquid inks in a bottle, I would be just as hesitant.

If the artist is asking you to do the ink and acrylic painting for them, it's a good idea not to, I'm afraid.

Picture to show you the smears, blobbing, and that lift off, hey it might reset, but I wouldn't bank on it:

[chaos]

How serendipitous for me that you are trialling protection methods without glass at this time. It is all so interesting. Thank you for taking the time to provide so much detail and the images.

I have passed your comments onto the artist. Thankfully she has not asked me to seal her work in this way. It would be something I would avoid doing at all costs!