paintings prints and stuff

copyright Vivien Blackburn Katherine asked me to show how I frame work, so .... here goes :) This is how I framed the big mixed media and pastel abstracted flower. The frame is over 3ft square and the mount was either 4 or 5 inches wide - I think it might have been 5 with 5.5 inches at the bottom. It could even have had a wider mount (mat) - but the framing costs got a bit much! My framer taught me when I was starting out that it pays to have an extra half inch at the bottom to stop the 'falling out of the frame' look that you can get if the mount is equal all the way round. I don't use coloured mounts, just antique white - a soft creamy colour. I usually frame in limed ash - again a pale neutral colour that lets the painting be the key element. By using one type of wood they all look right together in a show. The widths of the frame may vary but the 'look' is the same. I never frame work on canvas. I use gallery wrap canvas and paint the edges - usually in a colo...

Finally I manage to write a bit about this exhibition. Renoir is not a favourite artist of mine, though I appreciate his work his good - his women are very simpering, shallow and sugary and having done some research for an art history assignment at uni, I found he had a very unpleasant attitude towards women, thinking women artists were an abomination and women should be in the kitchen or bedroom! He 'painted with his *****', he said. Some of his works, like the Bar at the Folies Bergere I do like, very much. Anway, to the landscapes. I really hadn't seen many of his landscapes before so was interested to see them. It was noticeable straight away that, unlike Monet, he didn't look hard at the greens that were there , but used bluey-greens and generalised, choosing his own colour scheme, though in the example shown here the greens aren't so blue - probably because the water is very blue and it simply wouldn't have worked in this case. The early landscapes were ...