What kind of impact can you make with custom framing?
Every now and then we have a new client come into the shop who’s never used any custom framing before. All they’ve every experienced is buying a frame from a big box store and sticking their picture in it. Sometimes they assume that what we do is the same basic thing, we just make the frame ourselves. While we do obviously make our own frames, there’s a whole world of art that goes into the custom framing process.
To illustrate what a difference a framing job can make, let us show you a recent Professional Picture Framer’s competition. Every entrant received the same subject, a set of four pieces from the Little Bird series by Chris Paschke. Then they each created a custom framed piece. Let’s take a look at a what a couple different shops created.
This third place entry from Texas uses a complementary forest green background and a slightly rustic frame to complement the artwork. They also add in a fabric background to bring in a textural element. By combining these touches with plenty of negative space, they’ve created a solid, large-scale piece of artwork out of 4 small pictures, while still preserving the prints as the focal point of the piece.
This entry won a Judges award for it’s unique style. In this case, the framing artist started with an understated but interesting frame and added multiple layers inside it, with a more heavily designed inner frame and a gold filet. Combined with the bamboo textured mat and a horizontal arrangement, the overall effect is an elegant and exotic look with an asian influence befitting the art.
This frame has a more classic style that would fit in in most homes. The frame and matting are both muted and traditional, while each picture is set in their own frame with their own double matting. This results in a classic, living room look, but what’s most interesting about this piece is how large the end result is. These 4 small pictures that fit onto a single paper now make up a full size piece of wall art large enough and bold enough to be the centerpiece of a room.
This entry received another Judges Award for it’s unique design. In this case, rather than create a wall-hung piece of art, the framers created a free-standing sculpture from the same four pictures. Obviously done with an asian style and a rotating base, this would make a beautiful piece for an end table or bookshelf.
Finally we have the first place winner. Done in more of a shadow-box style, this frame could make you believe the that whole thing is the work of a single artist. The images are framed in a more rustic style befitting the painting technique and without traditional filets or matts. Even the frame is a very simple wooden frame. You can see the bamboo above and below the images and the blank space between them that serve to visually separate the artwork in the same way that a traditional filet would. While not the largest or most striking piece on display, The framing artist’s harmony with the original artist’s style make this a winning entry.
If you’ve got something beautiful you want to put on the wall, before you go sticking in a Walmart frame, bring it by the shop and let us see how we can help turn the whole thing into a work of art.
"We love these silhouettes, Jody. The process was so easy and they ended up looking exactly like our boys. We now have them hanging in our bedroom. This was our first experience with a custom framing shop and the quality is just unbelievable. And being able to look at and tweak every detail was awesome. Thanks again, Jody." -Missy L