But it wasn't me officer, I've been framed.

Good day!

A nice aspect of working in an art gallery with a framing department is that I can frame my own artworks for a good price. I decided I wanted to frame this gum artwork I did as I'm planning on making a series of these works. I also wanted to frame it as the artwork itself is quite fragile and I wanted to help preserve it.
I picked it up the other day and was very happy with the results.

Then my brain perked up and was all like "I'm sure everyone would love to hear your insights about framing, Jamie!" to which I replied "Gee brain, that's a swell idea, let's indulge!"
A bit of inspiration from Chris Cooley's blog is that the accompanying text will be provided with an awesome soundtrack so make sure you click here first, then proceed to read onwards on this crazy textual adventure.

So here are a few insightful insights that I've learnt for anyone that fancies themselves as a bit of an interior design nut or are looking to get something framed. The important thing about getting artwork framed is to choose a frame that compliments the artwork (duh). I often see it where the frame is chosen above everything else and becomes the main focus or overall becomes too distracting. I went for a black matt box frame to keep it fairly contemporary, introducing a new or different colour that hasn't already been established is a very bad idea.

 

Mounting, homeslice.

This is quite an integral part of framing any artwork, it can be often overlooked or not considered important - I get a lot of customers who think this and admittedly when I first started I certainly thought it wasn't important. It's important for the following reasons: 

It acts as negative and breathing space for the artwork, a small or no border can often make the frame look like it's visually choking the image. This helps give the artwork a sense of presence as well. But more importantly it helps protect the artwork, the typical mount is a window mount that sits on top of the artwork and raises the glass away it, protecting it from damage.

You have a lot of choices in colour too. There's like a million shades of white - "You could say 50 shades of white!" I proclaim to customers, quickly followed by silence and a drifting appearance of tumbleweed. But seriously, I'd like anyone to try and point out the different between 'ice white' and 'polar white'. 

So, since this is a 3D artwork I went for a lay-on mount as opposed to a window mount which sits on top of the artwork as a bevel.

 

Box frame/fillets, dude.
Now since I've gone for a lay on mount, the artwork will have to be in a box frame which contains fillets (cluck). These are spacers that keep the glass away from the artwork, providing depth. If you're looking to get a box frame, it's good to get a chunky amount of depth, I went for 15mm for this. Technically you can make as much depth as you want, it's just down to how the deep the actual profile of the frame is (see picture below) This frame is about 30mm deep, so it has enough space for the artwork, fillets and glass.
Interestingly box frames are very much in trend and proving to be a popular choice for contemporary works, perhaps because the window mount technique can look a bit old fashioned or dated?

Phwoar, look at the depth on this beast.

Righteous glazing
Last of all, your glass. I went for 'normal' glass as specialized glass can jump up a lot in price. Even though normal glass is cost effective, you can see from the photo above that it will have a lot of reflection. You can go for a non-reflective glass to avoid this or ultimately hang the piece where natural light won't evade it too much. There's museum quality glass that offers better clarity (I think the iron is removed, which is usually a blue or green tinge that you get in most glass) and has a UV filter. This is great for protecting any valuable artwork or anything that will be directly and constantly in sunlight, as the sun loves to ruin colours over time. That pesky sun.

So there you go, hope this incredible insight helps anyone with any framing thoughts. If anyone has any framing questions I'd be happy to answer to the best of my ability. You could say I have the hang of it now. Right?.. Right?.. Ah there's the door!

TTFN

Jamie

Fender trender.

Hello hello,

Recently I've been exploring current themes and ideas that seem to be trending in the world of design and illustration. A common theme I have noticed in particular is type in the form of 'sayings', imagery and quotes. These have made quite a surge in the form of interior design and decoration. I decided to play around with this and see what I could come up with.

The initial danger of doing or creating something in trend is that it's soon going to be outdated. I wanted to adapt this current theme and put some legs/layers onto it. This in turn bodes well for my love of word play, puns and visual jokes. 

I've come up with the following ideas, as I've mentioned before I really enjoy discussing how ideas generate and develop, so bear (grr) with my incisive annotations. They say ideas should speak for themselves rather than need to be explained and I agree. But I see this like how you would see a TV series or a film. You like to discuss how things happen, why they happened, how they could've been done differently and who killed who. 

So let's jump on board! Keep your hands in the cart at all times:

 

First off, the word 'awesome' is quite frankly, awesome. It's satisfying to say and it's pretty hilarious how well it's misused. This Eddie Izzard stand up explains well what I mean.

The 'Do and be' part comes from a few different sayings:

"To do is to be" - Nietzsche

"To be is to do" - Kant

"Do be do be do" - Sinatra

It's half tongue in cheek and half serious, it's up to you how you take it.
The circular composition and colour scheme was inspired by the warning signs for wild kangaroos. As if to say, "Hey! Stop! Be awesome!"

I really enjoyed doing this idea because of the simplicity of it - I really favour a 'less is more' approach when I can use it. The colours and composition work an absolute treat and this in turn makes the different shapes of the artwork very satisfying to look at.
I added the ' 'ding' ' in inverted commas as I wanted a sense of irony to it. Having it as just 'ding' with no inverted commas looked like it was being very serious and one dimensional.

This was another idea I really enjoyed scribbling out from my notebook and translating it into a digital format. For me, the playing of shapes, composition and negative space is like a really well done joke told visually.
For the non-film buffs out there this is a play on the JAWS movie poster. I came up with this idea when I was drawing a birthday card for a friend and out of nowhere a great idea came into my head. It reminded me of how a certain pesky shark would appear out of nowhere in their grand size and devour their victims. From there this idea was created! It's a lovely feeling when a good idea creeps up on you when you least expect it (unless it's shark sized). I spent a while playing around the with the 'jaw' and seeing what balance worked, originally I was going to use a black outline and in hindsight I'm glad I didn't as it would've made the rest of the composition quite heavy.

I'm fairly satisfied with this idea - I realize the message is somewhat clichéd but I wanted to give the image a bit of context, as without the wording it delivers a different message. The imagery itself I like as the visual double pun of the fountain pen/bomb. It was quite hard to get the right balance between the two in terms of shape so I had to compromise somewhere in the middle. One feature I'm very happy with is the textured aesthetic. In the past I've spent ages trying to find a distressed poster/pealing ink/screen print look without much luck (or quite honestly, skill).
After various online tutorials and practice I managed to combine multiple layers and masks (about 4 in total) to produce the look above, which I'm very happy with.
I should mention that this image wasn't my original doodle, it was this:
 

Amazing how much an idea can develop from the initial idea to something quite different. I still do like this idea a lot but it really lacks edge, it's missing something. It compares well to the image above as it's been given context but if I started with this I don't think it would've been good enough as a standalone idea, I'm not sure. The scale I found very difficult to do, as well as the wording and the font used (Guanine, for those interested). I feel there's more juice that can be squeezed out of this.

Anywho, that's all for now. If you have any thoughts or suggestions how I could give an extra spark to any of the above images I'd love to hear them. If a couple of these ideas prove to be popular I may make them into a print series but we'll cross that bridge when it happens.

Coming soon:
- I'm continuing work on a new collaboration project with two close friends, a bit similar to the HMS Crown episodes I've done in the past, all will be revealed soon.
- A new 'gum' artwork is on the horizon which I'm quite excited about. I'm hoping to make a series of 4/5 in total.

That's all folks! Until next time.