Frightfest Frame

The finished Halloween prize frame, the print is by Graham Humphreys and was originally painted for the poster artwork for Film4 Frightfest 2015. This frame was very fun to make and is not meant to be taken too seriously!!

There are various types of ornament and decoration used; the skulls are cast in hard casting plaster, the monster head at the top is 3D printed, the cartouches, wings, the bottom centre ouroboros and cats eye ornament on the other three centres are all moulded in epoxy sculpture putty, the straight outer cats eye ornament is machine carved, the latin text is pastiglia, the two pentagrams are made from spaghetti and then gesso on top, lastly the symbols are oil gilt in white gold. The finish is just paint, wax, and pigments.

Spandrels and Arched Slips

A few examples of spandrels and arch-topped slips, with various ornament and decoration. Three example have composition ornament, the one above has a low relief floral design built up from gesso (pastiglia), and there is also a nice example of incised decoration which depicts a ship flying British flags.

Cassetta frame

A cassetta frame with pastiglia corners and centres and water gilded finish, made by an American (volume) maker of antique style frames.

Gilded frames with gesso ornament

Heart corner

Detail of a corner with a pastiglia heart, the frame is painted in grey/pink bole and will be gilded in 12ct white gold. Below is the frame during the the building up of the gesso layers.

Trainee projects

These are three frame projects finished today by the work experience trainee. Excellent work for a teenager, and I was impressed with how quickly she learnt and picked up the basics of finishing. 

Work experience

This week a pupil from a local high school has been spending her work experience week at the workshop. These are three of the frames she has been working on, doing almost all of the work on them herself, showing great potential as a creative picture framer!
The top frame is a paint finish with acrylic size gilding in aluminium leaf. The middle frame is another paint finish. The process for these two was an acrylic primer undercoat on the obeche timber, then two coats of lime white, and then various diluted paint stippled and flecked on, they were finished off with wax. The bottom frame has been prepared for gilding in the usual traditional way and has had some pastiglia decoration built up in gesso.

Doing the pastiglia decoration

I drew in pencil the stylized jasmin flowers, and also the words 'love' and 'peace' on the top and bottom sections. These patterns were built up with gesso, an old technique called pastiglia. This is a time consuming process. When the pastiglia was dry it was sanded smooth.