Sunday

Repaired frame

Florentine progress



The antique Florentine frame has been sanded and the carved detail sharpened up, it has then been painted with yellow bole.

Thursday

My first jobs back at work






These are a few repair jobs I started today. The little swept frame above has a few losses to the compo, then the Barbizon frame has lots of small areas of damage to the plaster ornament, finally the 
pierced Rococo frame has a few losses to the inner ornament. The old label at the top is from the little swept frame.
Two of these frames (the swept and the Barbizon) have been repaired by me before, careless handling by shippers (taking the frames to and from art fairs and exhibitions) has caused the various damage which means they need repairing again.

Tuesday

Imitation water gilding



On this frame a centre panel with distressed paint and deep polish finish is combined with oil gilding, which imitates a distressed water gilded finish.

Canvas tray or float frames





These two canvas tray frames or float frames have been gilded in metal leaf, with distressed paint on the inside and outside, finished off with light paint speckles. 

Dutch ripple moulding



Here is another frame that has been made while I have been away. It is a classic ripple frame with a deep ebonised polished finish, (often called a Dutch or Flemish frame but this is an inaccurate association as the style was found in many European countries), with oil gilded inner and outer edges. I do like these styles of frames, even though they are often dark the polished finish and the ripples reflect light and create an interesting effect. The original antique frames in this, and similar styles command relatively high prices.
Anyway, back to this frame, the moulding is bought in unfinished lengths (between 2.5m and 3m long) in obeche wood with the ripple pattern already applied in a material known as pasta, which is made from wood pulp and binders. This type of moulding is made something like this; the base moulding is fed through a machine with a metal embossing wheel which has the ripple pattern carved into the wheel, the pasta material (in a dough like consistency) is fed onto the moulding, and as it passes through the wheel and the length of moulding moves through the machine, the ripple pattern is impressed into the pasta.

January jobs




I've been away from work for nearly all of January, and although I am back in England now, I have not really started work properly yet. Mark and Ian have been very busy at the workshop,  and lots of new work has been coming in, which is good as January and February are often quiet months.
Here you can see a nice carved Florentine style frame which is being totally refinished, it is probably late 19th Century, it was in a bad state and had a pretty poor metal leaf (imitation gold) finish. The gesso is being sanded and the detail is being re-cut using metal tools. Next it will be painted in yellow and red bole.