is a mitre corner necessary

[Gillthepainter]

Indeedy.
When I first starting putting my pictures out there in a local cafe 15 years ago, my biggest mistake was thinking if I put it up on a wall, someone would buy it (I had studio rent of £200 per month to pay for).

It was probably the biggest mistake I ever made. Underestimating the public, thinking I could get away with cheap frames mainly.

To be fair, The Range frames 15yrs ago, were actually made of wood, not now! although I didn't use them after the 1st year. I had to put my grown up pants on, and up my standards.

I still see it when I'm exhibiting: £450 pictures, with £15 crap frames. But you already know this.

And as you mention standing out from the crowd (in a good way), I am moving away from white frames which have served me well. And having a change up.

I think I'm doing the right thing, as already a core group of artists are asking how I do it. Imitation and all that.

By the way, your website is beautiful.

[prospero]

Interesting to see those cast ornate frames.

I saw a doco on TV one day when they were looking around an old stately residence.
There were HUGE family portraits on the wall - all in HUGE ornate frames. Like, 15ft high.
Funny thing was that they were cast in one piece out of some species of plaster (concrete? )
and gilded. They had the original bill from the artist and the frames cost twice as much as the paintings.
They were attached to the walls with some serious ironwork and probably been there for 200+ years.

** People often think that the past was the age of the craftsman but I also get the idea that all those applied ornaments not
so much serve decorative purposes but to hide a multitude of sins. Some of the old frames I've had through my hands
were on ropey timber and the joinery was rough as a Badger's behind.

[Gillthepainter]

I sometimes go round Buscot House near Oxford, and some of those artworks are there to stay with the house for ever.
My modern house walls cannot take that kind of punishment.

And it's all very well painting a huge pretty picture, but taking it anyway is a helluva job. You need a van and 2 men to deal with it, and if by some stroke of luck you sell it, you are just passing on a problem.
I used to see one artist trawl out a beast, getting staff to lift it and hang it. Then back home in a van she had to borrow or rent.

My biggest is 1m x 1m, and framed it goes into the back of the Citroen.

[bang]

Apologies if you know about casting already, I did quite a bit as an art student...

Get some jute scrim from tiranti or other supplier, it really reinforces the casting.

Brush your mould with the plaster to get the detail when it's kind of a creamy consistency, then dip the scrim in your casting material so it's really well coated, and gently push it onto your detail layer. You could then use strips of wood and put that in the back of your mould, filling around it with your plaster.

If you don't want to use wood, you could simply embed looped wire into the plaster mould. I used to do that a lot to cast portrait masks and hang them from the wall for display.

[Gillthepainter]

Thank you, Bang.
And I definitely do not know anything about casting. I am having enjoyment doing this and am going to make more of these, so all of your tips and expertise are words from the wise to me.

I did have success with putting linen on the back, embedded with 2 of my frames. Yes, it definitely worked well.

I sold 2 of these on Sunday, and they did attract interest from the public.
Which is good going, as the art fair was on the way thru to Sainsbury = not really buyers, just shoppers. So I was pleased, and shall trust my instinct and persevere.

[bang]

Well done!!

At the art markets where I am it's difficult to sell anything!!

Yes, linen would work for reinforcement, but the textured and fibrous nature of hemp or jute scrim means it really gets entangled into the plaster and reinforces it. It also acts as a filler, meaning your cast isn't quite as heavy. It's fairly common for sculptors to pad their cast out with polystyrene beads or something similar to make them lighter and use less plaster.

[vintage frames]

Was that the art fair in Bath, Green Park Station - on the way to picking up food in Sainsburys?

I ask this because it does look a bit of a miserable experience.
I used to do the Saturday antiques and flea market in Walcot street. A very casual market but a much better location.
That's where a lot more serious punters prefer to buy.

I started off there and sold an awful lot of picture frames.
What you have is a very package-able object, a pretty frame with a nice little painting inside.
Whats not to like?

[Gillthepainter]

Correct. It's the Green Park Station.
I do all of this because I enjoy what I'm doing. And I put more into framing than the painting to be honest. I paint a picture in 30mins, but the frame takes a couple of hours.

[vintage frames]

I paint a picture in 30mins, but the frame takes a couple of hours.

I know the feeling.
When I am given something to frame, I'll take two or three weeks to make the frame, then 30 min to mount in the artwork.

Even worse is to go around an important art museum and only spend time studying the frames.
Sort of quick glance up at the painting then close in to see the detail colour and ornament around the frame.

Its a well known fact that many artists start spending time making their frames and then end up running a bespoke framing business.

[Gillthepainter]

That is all so true for me. If I'm allowed at the venue I take pictures of frames to remember, but not the artwork.

One big advantage I have as an artist is being able to change my frames that on reflection aren't right, for hopefully little money.
I can also frame every single one of my paintings that are keepers. Although I prefer to sell them to continue to paint more.

[prospero]

Its a well known fact that many artists start spending time making their frames and then end up running a bespoke framing business.

Don't I know it....

I haven't done a painting for ten years. I haven't even got any in my shop to sell.

I started framing my own work and then for artist pals and then for anybody.

Nowadays this takes all my time and then some although I more-or-less do stuff for pro artists exclusively.

Hey-Ho....

[JKX]

Yes, a mitre join is pretty necessary, there are others of course but they’re rarely seen and probably need more skill. All have to be cut accurately anyway and then they need to be joined. The more basic the tools, the more skill you’ll require, and time.
Then there’s all the rest anyway, mounts bevel cut with no over/under cuts or hooked corners, glass, backings, mounting methods and final sealing of the frame and fitting of hardware. It all takes space too.
My advice to any good artist is to establish a working relationship with a good framer.

We, for example, like many framers, also sold framed art and we found it very difficult to get good quality originals, especially of local scenes, so we’d go around local art exhibitions which ranged from bloody awful to not bad, and pretty good to very very good. We found that at the higher end the prices were far too low, you could spend more for limited editions by artists totally unknown in the “art world”. So we’d buy the best we could find unframed, and sometimes framed too, and then frame/re-frame them in ways the artist would not want to pay for. We’d at least double what we paid, plus VAT, and then add the cost of the frame – and sometimes they’d STILL be less than many limited editions.

Then we’d find these artists and tell them what we did and we eventually got a few who would give us what we wanted on sale or return and we, fairly confident their stuff would sell, would frame a whole exhibition for them on sale or return, and if returned, we would first try and sell the work ourselves before deciding what to do about the frame.

There were also a few artists we gave good discounts to because they chose from a selection of mouldings and mounts, ordered on line and did the mounting/fitting themselves. Our basic discount for this was minus a mounting and fitting charge and then minus 20% - after that we could move further because we weren’t “really” giving any discount yet, as we got at least 20% discount off everything used. We would move further if, for example, all frames used the same moulding and mount combo and further still if they were the same size.

We gave 30 day terms to a few too, and one such customer, not an artist but a wedding stationery business who we did table plans for, was who called the decision for us to get a CMC. That business alone effectively paid for the machine in a couple of years!

Many artists, like many businesses, are afraid to speculate, but you can, of course, get seriously bitten on the bum, and it didn’t go smoothly with every single artist/”trade” customer.

I also started as an artist, well, a calligrapher, framing my own stuff; I quickly had to keep quiet about the calligraphy. Since retiring I've been getting back in to it but currently it's on hold after four vitrectomies for a detached retina! Retina is now flat (fixed) but not fully settled and I have distorted vision, but that will go - they removed a cataract as well on the last op and will do a less serious one in the other eye in a few months to balance things. All being well, once settled, I may not even need glasses! I always imagined cataracts were sort of scraped off - nope, the lens, complete with cataract is removed and tossed out, replaced with a silicone one!

[vintage frames]

That's both an interesting read and a good thread.
Good art does need good framing in order to sell.
Which is really what its all about.

How have other framers got on with framing up artist's works?
I know Prospero makes it his business to do so, and he makes his own frames, so that's brownie points from me.

Anyone else?

[Justintime]

Sadly my experience with local artists hasn't been so good, business-wise at least. I have made some great friends and bought some lovely pieces in the process but work wise I have found them really difficult.
Costs to them and loyalty to me have been the greatest issues. I'm sure I'm partly to blame, as I'd give an artist a decent chunk of time on the initial consultation, in the hope of building a solid base for a working relationship going forward. I often spent up to two hours in an initial meeting. Having discovered early on that discounting was a mugs game and harming my business, it became clear that there was no sense of loyalty when it came to their bottom line. Even established artists with good sales, as soon as a new framer opened they'd all be there marvelling at the cheap pricing. The pricing wake-up call comes to us all, soon after the first years accounts are completed and you realise how hard you've worked for so little return.
Collectors on the other hand, the actual buyers of the artwork don't have the same budget restrictions, they appreciate good design and customer service and don't want to hang around for longer than absolutely necessary.
I'm not sure how this relates to mitre corners!

[vintage frames]

I think the problem might be with the artist seeing only all the work which they have put into their artwork.
They have spent days or weeks sweating over the canvas, getting the composition and colours just right.
Worrying does it convey all of the true meaning which they are trying so hard to tell.

Then - "would someone please buy my picture."

The trouble is the customer who might want to buy it will want to hang it on their wall.
They'll then look at it a few times and after that it becomes part of the furniture.

If the frame is unsuitable and doesn't really marry in with the customers style of interior design, then that's perhaps a sale lost for the artist.

I tend to think that successful artists will always commission the best framing they can afford.
They like to think that the customer who buys their art has quite sophisticated tastes.
They wouldn't really want to take a risk with insulting them with cheap shoddy framing.

[Justintime]

I tend to think that successful artists will always commission the best framing they can afford.
They like to think that the customer who buys their art has quite sophisticated tastes.
They wouldn't really want to take a risk with insulting them with cheap shoddy framing.

To be honest, in my experience the opposite is true. I visited a number of high street galleries in Stratford n Avon a few years ago. Fairly high end, prices up to £15-20k. I recognised some of the mouldings as being lower end (and in some cases cheap) and what was visible from the outside of the frame the workmanship was poor with I suspect no glue in the joints (finally we're back to mitred corners!). Good only knows what horrors were inside the sandwich...

[vintage frames]

That is rather sad.
What is even more depressing is that these galleries still manage to make a living peddling that crap.

Maybe I'm being too idealistic.
All my work goes around dead artists.
I do get the odd enthusiastic query when I put something new up on Instagram.
But when I give them a quote, the line goes very quiet.