Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Framing Paintings on Suede

A couple of posts ago, I was singing the praises of using suede paper as as support for pastel painting.  This post will tell you how difficult it is to frame paintings on suede supports!  lol

I'm participating in an arts festival the weekend of the 23rd of this month and am trying to get paintings selected and framed and just stuff ready for the event. 

The painting of the dog (Chevy) that I'd painted on the suede paper gave me a very hard time.as no matter what I did, the pastel would fall off.  I sprayed it several times with fixative and even that didn't seem to help. 

I ended up tapping the back of the painting to get rid of as much loose pastel as I dared then I attached the hanger wire holders to the frame and attached one end of the hanger wire.  I left the frame in an upright position, cleaned and inserted the glass into the frame, added the top mat, then the inner mat turned to face the painting (to capture any pastel dust that might still fall).  Finally I added the painting and the backing board. 

After trying several times to frame this painting and cleaning the glass numerous times after each failure, I finally got the dog framed!  I guess the secret is to leave the frame upright during the whole framing process!

2 comments:

Christine Perry | Graphite Art said...

Sounds like you're going to be very busy until the show. There is always some last minute this or that which needs to be done and can be quite stressful. I hope you will have a very successful show sale wise and that you will make many valuable connections.

Jan said...

Thanks for the support on the show, Christine. I don't really like doing these shows but it is a way to get seen and connect with art buyers if nothing else.

Yes, I am busy and probably won't be updating the blog much for a couple of weeks.

I photograph the two Coton de Tulears this afternoon then will start on their portraits if all goes well.

So, will have a full plate from now until Christmas!