Who's that knurl? La lalalala la la la.

In an earlier post I described the cheap and easy gold paint makeover of a free frame that had the following layout: a gold outer frame, a fake linen liner, and then a gold inner edge.  So, I finished the outer golden bits a few weeks ago and thought it looked fine.  Then the frame sat around, moved around here and there, put aside, moved back and forth while I hemmed and hawed about what to frame, and at some point I realized that a blinged out frame of that style needed a suitably blinged out piece of artwork.  It just wasn't conducive to a photograph of a sea creature, or a simple snapshot of people.

No.

This much gold needed something from a Golden Age. 

Enter the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and their AWESOME online catalog of ENTIRELY FREE ART DOWNLOADS.

God I love the Rijksmuseum, they do it right.

I loved the Rijksmuseum in person when I visited years ago and now I love it even more because unlike some other national museums the Rijksmuseum has an easy to use section on their website called Rijks Studio.  In Rijks Studio anyone who creates a FREE account can search, create libraries, and download high resolution files of art in the collection to use however you want.

Having been enchanted with the floral still life paintings when I visited the museum in person I immediately started searching for bouquets (search 'still life' or 'flower' on the Rijksmuseum site).
I found some luscious contenders in less than 30 seconds, seriously.
The 1600s were good years for intense paintings of flowers.

flowers flowers flowers

In the end I settled on this badass shell composition that looks like something out of a Shakespearean Tempest fantasy scene. It happens to be the rather generically named "Shells and Marine Plants" by Henricus Franciscus Wiertz from the year 1809. So, ok, not exactly from the 1600s, but whatevs, shells are timeless.










































I downloaded a copy, ordered a print from an online vendor, and in a few days had a nice little 8x10 to frame.  When I held it up to the frame something seemed....off. The "linen" border seemed to drain the pizazz from the piece, so I decided to paint that gold too.  My hope was that it would look like a cool knurled pattern next to the thin rope detail, so I got to work with the tube of Antique Iridescent Gold and the small brush that had been chewed up by a cat.

The painted "linen" part of the frame retained the texture as I was hoping.....

Who's that knurl?

.....la la la la la la!

When I finally cleaned the glass and put all the pieces back together I was so happy with the results. 

I was this-brings-me-official-KonMari-levels-of-joy joyous.

(If any of the images seem blurry it is because I shrunk them down, the originals are huge and super sharp.)

So. Money.

When I finally cleaned the glass and put all the pieces back together I was so happy with the results. 

I was this-brings-me-official-KonMari-levels-of-joy joyous.

In case you had forgotten how this all started over a month ago, here's the before and after.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

Happy freestyling. Don't rush it, find the piece that makes your wall sing.