What it looks like framed
I mainly work on Arches (made in France) 300 pound (very heavy) rough watercolor paper. I don’t cut it down, but wet it and tear it if working on smaller than a full sheet and don’t tape or staple it to a board, but paint right to the rough, deckled edges of the paper. This requires paying attention to the edges and blotting them as I paint so they don‘t become darker than the adjacent area, but I love beautiful paper and it is worth the effort to preserve the edge qualitity. To me the edges are are akin to the “live edges” of wood that are left in furniture sometimes.
Because of this I usually use “floating” framing where the paper is mounted to a solid piece of mat board, not put behind a mat with a window cut in it which covers the edges of the painting. This also doesn’t allow me to re-crop the image in matting, or fix a crooked horizon, or hide all kinds of other mistakes that can be “fixed in post” with a regular mat. “Symmetry/Asymmetry”
Off white mat and gold frame.
“Event Horizon as Still Life”
Floating framing on a gray mat in gold frame.
“Garden Riot” and “Candy-Striped Amaryllis” in a show at the Belmont Gallery of Art.
White mats and 2″ deep gallery-style frames.
“Buoys on the Breeze”
Off-white mat and gold-tone gallery-style frame.
Pack of note cards from painting
Wooden box with print of painting on top. Felt-lined, felt feet.