Gesso filling

This 20th Century water gilded frame has suffered from gesso flaking away on the exposed high part of the moulding. It has been sanded back a little, and the loose pieces of gesso removed, next the exposed areas were brushed with hot rabbit skin glue.

antique frame sale

It has taken me a long time, and it is far from ready, but I have finally launched my second blog which is for selling antique, old, reproduction, and some of my own frames online:

antique frame sale

I started it back in late 2011 but events during 2012 prevented my from really devoting anytime to organising the site. Cataloguing my frames has taken me ages and is still ongoing, working out postage costs has also been something of a challenge, but it is all slowly coming together. Only one frame is listed so far! but more will be added soon.

Old prints

These two antique prints show the effects of light damage and poor quality mountboard. The lighter areas were hidden from view by the mount. 

Distressed paint

This frame is a variation of a finish I did recently on the blog:
Pine frame, using the same basic steps but on a different profile.
 

A beginner's gilding work

These water gilded and painted picture frames, are training pieces for the framer who I work with. He has done pretty well considering how little gilding he has done himself, I did the final colouring and paint effects.

A few gilded and painted frames

These are a few gilded and painted frames from previous posts that have now been finished.

Gold Leaf

23.5ct Medium Deep Gold Leaf

22ct Moon Gold Leaf

18ct Lemon Gold Leaf

16ct Green Gold Leaf

12ct White Gold Leaf

These are some of the different types of gold leaf that are used in gilding picture frames. It is difficult to photograph the colours, but in reality they look quite different to each other. The gold leaves come in books of 25 sheets, each sheet is about 80mm x 80mm.

Damage from poor mountboard

You may have seen some mounts which have a brown bevel cut edge, this would have originally been a cream colour but the core of the mountboard quickly turns brown. This is caused by the lignin (tree sap) in the board fibres. Lignin is the binder which holds wood and paper fibres together. Over time lignin becomes highly acidic. This process is accelerated by heat and light. This acid then causes the board to weaken and discolour, and the acid can soon migrate from the mountboard and cause damage to the artwork. The second photo shows the damage that this acid migration has caused to the paper it surrounded.

Gilding in progress

Some examples of frames that have been gilded this week. Top is 12ct white gold on black bole, next is 23.5ct gold burnished over black bole, middle is 23.5ct on grey bole, then second from bottom is the top frame after it has been painted, the bottom frame is 23.5ct on Baroque brown bole. I always gild first and then do the painted sections after.

Framefinders

I had a good look round the new Framefinders website today, based in America and run by Edward Balfour, it is a great looking website offering a large selection of antique frames for sale online, with some interesting information on some framemakers and details of past auction results and previous works framed.

http://framefinders.com/

Seasons Greetings 2013