Pictures two: or How Framing is not for me and other miscellaneous stuff

Being a nit picker for scale I often find some things hard to find which satisfy me and my budget.  I have had an eye out for picture frames for a long while and have bought this and that with varying success.  Eventually I decided how hard could it be to make a picture frame in scale and to the size I wanted.  I bought some mouldings from Jennifers of Walsall at a show a couple of years ago and they have lurked in the stash since then.  Time to dust them off

I bought two different styles.  The first is a plain/modern shape just 3/16ths inch wide

The other is a more traditional one.....  1/4 inch wide

.......with a complex profile which turned out to be even more of a pig to mitre

The reverse sides of these was pretty much the same in that they had been routed for you to put in the picture or maybe mirror and be left with a nice flush back - just as in real life.  A lot of frames you buy don't do this.   

I am quite proud of my mitring skills so off I trotted, full of confidence.

My first problem was what to cut it with.  I only have pretty basic equipment.  It was far too tiny and fiddly to use the saw and mitre block (I did try) so without that guide I already had a problem of getting the forty five degree cuts any way accurate.  It didn't take kindly to a knife and even the finest of scissor blades squished the material as it cut.  As you can see here the cuts were pretty dreadful and nowhere near a nice neat 45 degrees.

I cut the template in hopes of getting the lengths right and the angles right.  I didn't manage either. Even after attempting some adjustments here and there it was pretty much awful.

Sorry the focus is poor on this photo.  I glued the corners together best I could and stuck it on masking tape to stop it jiggling around (and coming unstuck) to paint it.  You can see my right side is longer than the left.

As for any gaps in the corners I used my usual method of mixing a little sawdust with paint and shoving that in and then sanding smooth when its dry.

So the finished object is not a thing of beauty and is a mirror,  not a picture as my post heading would suggest. 😉  

It actually looks OK in situ but I have two more back-up mirrors on their way so I will decide then which to use.

Worth noting before I leave that if you ever want any kind of wood pieces or trim for something you are doing this place has more than you could ever dream of:  Wood Supplies

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We live in strange times.....  I currently have a painful unrelenting dry cough with no other cold symptoms or even a high temperature. Day three, yesterday, because I am 74 and have a rubbish immune system I was checked at a local community hospital - BP, oxygen levels, listened to lower chest, looked down throat and told I may or may not have the virus.  There is no way of knowing as tests will only be done if you are admitted to a hospital as an emergency. Apparently that point comes when you are finding it hard to breath when resting!!  

Just a couple of thoughts.......Clearly we will never be able to know the true statistics of the pandemic as there is no testing in the UK until it is pretty certain you have it.  The no test rule seemingly doesn't apply if you are a local MP and his wife both of whom were tested a few days before me in the same unit.  Such inequality will not sit well with many people.  When the worst is over and we are 'released' some months down the line we will be back in a world still carrying this virus (and its mutations) forever and have no way of knowing if we had it and are immune or if we are still vulnerable.  What a mess.

Meanwhile wish me luck.  To be fair I am on day four and thinking I have improved.

Pictures one

I decided to have a nice week working my way methodically through the house finding pictures for each room.  I began with the apartment sitting room.  

I decided it needed a large slim landscape picture above the sideboard.  The left wall is too busy to need pictures.  The right hand wall could have a group of pictures or a long slim landscape mirror above the sofa.  I think lots of pictures in a small room is a bit overpowering and you feel as if you are in a gallery so I settled on a mirror for this space...... a future make.

These are the ones I had culled over time and I liked them all equally.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

A word about copyright before we continue.  As a rough guide you should try to contact the owner of a piece and ask their permission to use it.  At the very least it is good manners to acknowledge the source.  In cases like this where ownership is not known and not findable the use of the image (or text etc) falls under the 'fair dealing' section.  The morass of copyright laws is a legal minefield but, commonsensically, if you are using things as we do in our projects and sharing with a few friends and without any monetary gain or mass production you will be safe.   Clearly there could be occasions when the artist might  challenge your use of their work if they see it and, equally clearly, you should remove it and apologise.  😊  Sadly in mini world there is a lot of 'commercial' copying of artisans work and we don't want to feel we are adding to that.

‘Fair dealing’ is a legal term used to establish whether a use of copyright material is lawful or whether it infringes copyright. There is no statutory definition of fair dealing - it will always be a matter of fact, degree and impression in each case. The question to be asked is: how would a fair-minded and honest person have dealt with the work?

Factors that have been identified by the courts as relevant in determining whether a particular dealing with a work is fair include:

• does using the work affect the market for the original work? If a use of a work acts as a substitute for it, causing the owner to lose revenue, then it is not likely to be fair
• is the amount of the work taken reasonable and appropriate? Was it necessary to use the amount that was taken? Usually only part of a work may be used

The relative importance of any one factor will vary according to the case in hand and the type of dealing in question.

From:  Exceptions to copyright Gov.uk  (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright)

This is UK copyright law.  I have no idea how 'international' it is.

Back to the picture.  I pretty much knew that the least interesting one, number 2, was going to be the one as its proportions were correct - shame; however I decided to  print and try all the others in situ just in case they looked OK and then discovered I was actually left with a choice of two; neither of which was number 2. Much fiddling about with numbers five and six ensued to find the optimum size.  The final (well for now) choice was made.

Next, the choices for hanging it were an Ikea click frame, an Ikea white wood frame or made to look like those stretched mounted canvas prints you can buy.  As it would be three feet by three feet in real world the answer was obvious.....

It was printed on some good quality copy paper and cut out with a generous allowance for wrapping over the wooden frame.  I cut and glued the wooden frame the same size as the print.  This was made from the wretched window frame wood that I am struggling with - you nearly escaped a mention of the windows this week. 😁

The print was then glued to the frame, trimming it to fit neatly.

frame being made, print ready to go

put together, showing the reverse with four tiny blobs of tacky wax for hanging it

I had experimented on a practice piece by coating it with some matt Mod Podge to give it some sort of 'surface' glaze and texture, but it muddied the colours a little and took the sharpness out of the detail.  Being a fusspot I decided to leave it unglazed (for now).

Et Voila - a picture in room number one.  After all my finger wagging last week about hanging pictures properly I think this needs dropping a little to pull the sideboard group together better.

Waiting for some more bits of dressing, a mirror and a human.

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PS:  Yes I did manage to knock over the candle/buddha tray.... sand and stones everywhere.  Thank heavens for the  first reference photo it saved me looking for more joss sticks which I set off doing because I was convinced there was more than three.

I intended to have all the pictures done this week but between a vendor faffing about (I was trying to match two frames I already have) and a lot of time spent with the family mini (my grandson) this has become an ongoing saga.  Look out for next Saturday's epistle.

How to hang Pictures

I have decided to sort out the pictures needed for each room.  This will be a combination of waiting for two frames to arrive from a vendor, making some frames and printing and mounting some pictures in various formats. 

Whilst spending a happy time in my reference photos for this project I did come across this on my trawl.  It is a real life guide that I refer to now and then in big world.

Apologies if I have shared this before but it is a bit of a crusade.  😄  I hate seeing pictures and mirrors hung badly.  Apologies too for not being able to acknowledge its source.  I have had it many years and have long since forgotten where it came from.

As for how to actually hang your pictures in your project will depend on many things - primarily the historical period of your room.  Often large ornate paintings are hung on visible chains - either to a large hook on the wall or even suspended from a brass rod running around the edge of the ceiling or coving.  Miniaturising this offers a few challenges.  I just prefer to imagine they are invisibly hung/fastened to the wall behind the picture whatever their size, weight, historical period and so all I need to do is just add a few tiny bits of museum wax.