Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The Importance of Mattes and Frames


This could be a really short post. Nut-shelled...frames and mattes are of the utmost importance. 

The right frame and matte will make a piece of art look professional and draw the eye. The wrong matte obscures the picture. The wrong frame cheapens the piece or fights the artwork for attention. The right matte and frame accentuate certain parts of the piece. The right matte and frame draws your eye to the artwork not to the frame or matte. The frame and matte will make or break your piece of art.

One of the things I did for our living room remodel project was switch out some mattes and frames. 

Before:
this is a piece painted by a friend of ours and framed and given to us by our youth group for a wedding gift.
We have always loved the piece, but it was time for a new frame.

After:
reddish-brown dark wood frame. same matte, same painting. The dark emphasizes the dark. It looks way more classy.
Before:
Another gift-painting by a friend. The dark brown matte went with the painting,
but was too dark when combined with the frame. I never was happy with it.

same painting, same frame, cream matte, with brown inlay. So much lighter.
It stands out now.

I do not have a before of this photograph from my brother. He gave it to me in a frame that just fit the picture. It needed the off white matte to pull out the back ground light in the photograph. It makes for a big piece of nice art. 


I have most of my art in black or black brown frames. It is my personal preference. I also tend to go up a frame size with almost everything I frame, in order to use a matte. The white space and margin adds beauty, peace and clarity to the art.

My favorite place for buying good quality, but cheaper picture frames is Hobby Lobby. The big wall frames are on sale for 50% off almost every other week. Smaller frames are 50% off every day.

I love when I end up with an awesome piece of artwork that I didn't pay top dollar for!

Speaking of not paying top dollar, my Frugal Eating post generated a lot of hits and a lot of conversation. Today, over at Womanhood with Purpose, I am sharing a post I've called Hippie Method: Frugal Eating Revisited, in order to answer some questions that arose.


I hope you will join me over there for 10 more tips and what nots...