Framed: Travails of the Quails

The Find

It's always lawn and yard-care season somewhere. Sometimes amongst the tree trimmings and grass clippings you come across a charming framed picture of bobwhite quails.

Framed watercolor out for trash pickup

Yes, it happens. Thank you universe.
I happily scooped up this lovely watercolor and carried it to the freestyle workshop for closer inspection.  Now, it seems to me that the main reason people discard otherwise undamaged and well-framed pieces is that the glass (a.k.a. "glazing" in framing lingo) has broken - either a lot or a little.  I think this is a shame, because custom replacement glazing - in the form of lightweight acrylic - can be purchased from a variety of online vendors.  I've been using American Frame for years and they even offer UV-resistant acrylic options that are both lightweight and protective in custom-cut sizes. (Not a sponsored post!!). The important thing to know is that if you lose your glass you don't have to lose your art.  Ok, back to the bobwhite quails.

The Makeover

After getting the piece home I examined the edges and I'm glad I did, there was a nice little piece of broken glass still stuck in the edge of the frame.

Broken glass stuck in frame

I cleaned off the front and back with a vaccuum, and wiped off the entire outer frame with a gentle cleaner.

Back of the found frame

I decided to take the piece apart with an initial though of re-using the frame with another poster inside.  The layers were held to the frame with points, indicating that this was probably hand-framed, not mass-produced in a factory.  Framer's points tend to be found in custom-framed pieces, based on what I've found to date.  Staples are what you see in more mass-produced pieces, usually lightweight presswood frames.

Detail of framer's points

I considered reusing the frame for this poster of trees, sort of a cousin to the mineral poster I framed with an earlier found frame.

Tree poster inside frame

While working on this piece a strange thing happened - the more I looked at the original bobwhite quail watercolor, the more I liked it.  Peaceful imagery, soft blues and greens, really it just grew on me.  The original gold-tone frame however, all scratched up, didn't. Paint to the rescue. Gold paint of course.

Conclusion

The gold paint that I used on this piece has much more warmth, maybe from orange tones, than the original gold-tone metal frame. I think this makes the entire piece *pop* a bit more, but I'm biased.

Repainted frame with original watercolor

Artist signature: Ray Garner

I don't know anything about the named signed on this piece, Ray Garner. At any rate, nice work Ray!

Happy freestyling and art appreciating!

Garden of freestyle delights - Painted stone garden markers

Why you need garden markers

Optimistic gardeners might think they will remember where they planted such and such seeds, or which containers contain seeds. Hah.  Experience quickly teaches that it is easy easy easy to forget what you buried in the ground and where. Just ask any squirrel.  To help your memory, why not make some weather-proof garden markers?

How to make your own garden markers using rocks and acrylic paint

I had some luscious acrylic gold paint from a previous project where I was painting picture frames.  But nothing says gardens can't use a bit of bling! So I got out the paint and a pen, since I didn't have any paintbrushes at the time.

At first I tried to use the tip of the pen dipped in the acrylic to 'write' on the rocks by dragging the tip of the pen across the surface. This worked poorly on the uneven rock surface, the words were legible but the letter were uneven and blobby.  Then I thought about some painted rock mandala images I'd seen and thought about trying to using dots to make the letters. That worked out muuuuuch better, and also led to some other fun dot-based designs.  

Fair warning, this activity is addictive and soothing!

At the end of it I had some painted rocks with words for labeling the various seeds I had acquired to date: spinach, cilantro, and basil, along with some other freeform designs I could use for decoration while there was mostly bare dirt in the pots.

Conclusion

The easiest part is that you can just set the rock inside whatever pot you just planted up. No worries about it falling over or blowing away in a stiff breeze. Here is the garden label I made for some Thai basil seeds I got on sale because they were from last year.  Hope they germinate! Happy freestyling!

Update - the basil seeds took a long time to sprout, but they did eventually make it.

Cosmic Kismet - A wooden frame finds a new destiny

In the beginning...

...there was a frame posted for free on a website, amongst some other frames.  And it was taken by yours truly sometime in the fall of 2019. THANK YOU FRAME GIVER!

The first part of this freestyle

The wooden frame was examined, turned over, considered from all angles, and offered to friends who might be looking for an unusual size piece to fill with some original art (or who were into the original Wyeth print).

Andrew Wyeth print in wooden frame

Back side of the fame

The frame was pondered for a while, offered to other friends, and I considered trying to create something original of my own to fit the size. But its time had not yet arrived, destiny was still waiting, my indecisive delay was all part of the plan.

The chance conversation that revealed a destiny

And then a friend went to Nepal, and brought back a hand-painted poster of the cosmos wrapped up tightly in a poster tube for transport.....and then some time after returning the friend mentioned that he needed a frame for his new art, and asked if I could help.

Upon seeing the cosmos painting my eyes nearly popped out is disbelief. Not only did I have a frame, it was beautiful wood and had the PROPER DIMENSIONS. This was freestyle fate, or magic, it couldn't have been a coincidence.  So I started the process of dismantling the frame and carefully flattening the hand-painted poster that had been rolled up for so many weeks. I covered the art with wax paper and then some heavy books and just let it sit undisturbed for a few weeks.

Hand-painted cosmos, covered with wax paper,
underneath the original matting for size comparison

When the time was right to get started on the frame makeover, the first step, as always, was to disassemble the frame to clean all the components.

Back of the frame, dust cover and points removed

Wooden frame on its own

This particular wood frame had a very open grain, and it was a bit rough in places. I'm not sure if the roughness of the wood was a deliberate choice to go with the rustic style of the print, or a result of the age of the frame and perhaps the wood drying out over time.

Corner view of wooden frame before refinishing

Scuffed part of wooden frame, before refinishing

No matter the cause, I like my frames to feel smooth, even if their main purpose is to be looked at, not handled.  So I decided to gently sand the whole frame to smooth the surface with a fine grit sandpaper.

Wooden frame, smooth after a gentle sanding

After sanding, I finished the whole piece with furniture wax to give the wood some protection and shine.

Frame after first application of furniture wax

Closeup of frame after furniture wax application

After applying the furniture wax and buffing it to a shine, I allowed the frame to sit for at least a day to allow the wax to cure.

Conclusion

I delicately reassembled the frame with the poster, and was over-the-moon with the results.  See what beauty some patience and karma can lead to?

Refinished wooden frame with hand-painted cosmos art

Sweet cosmic dreams

Happy freestyling.

Framed! A woodblock poster print finds a new home

The discovery

When out looking for stuff with a friend he found this poster of a Japanese woodblock print, sort of rolled up and definitely abandoned but otherwise in good condition. 

In the night, and amongst some other stuff the woodblock poster looked like this....

Poster and other freebies

But when laid on the floor in daylight it looked like this!

Woodblock poster print laying on floor

It sat in his apartment on a shelf for a while because there was no suitable frame for it......... until I remembered the large black poster frame sitting under my desk!
(forehead slap sound)

Frame with original poster

I had taken this frame because it was intact and lightweight. The topic seems more suitable to a college dorm room, and it had probably had been in one in the recent past, but that's the good thing about frames - they are so easy to repurpose.  This frame isn't particularly high quality, the frame is some sort of dense pressboard or paper-based material, and the glazing (front clear piece) is flexible acrylic, but it looks just fine.

The reframing

After examining the frame a little closer, it turned out the that the woodblock poster was an exact size match for the frame.  Ridiculous that it took me more than an instant to put these things together.
I got out my tool and started the reframing process.

Step 1. Assemble tools: staple puller (pliers), screwdrivers, staple gun, and new staples

Pliers, screwdrivers, staple gun

Step 2. Unscrew the hanging wire across the back if you are going to change the orientation of the frame.  In this case I was switching from a landscape orientation to a portrait orientation, so I also had to adjust the wire (shorter) and re-clamp the little lead-based wrapping pieces.

Attachment point for hanging wire hardware

Step 3. Pull out staples.  You will probably have to discard these unless you have a clever way to repurpose used and deformed staples. 

Spent staples pulled from the frame

Step 4. Clean glazing (clear front layer) if needed, then lay new poster down behind glazing, and backing material behind that.

Step 5. Use a staple gun, held slightly away from the edge of the frame, and staple a few times on each side.

Step 6. Secure the hanging wire in the proper orientation, this might mean unscrewing the screws and moving them.

Step 7. Stand back and enjoy your work!

Conclusion

I loved loved loved making this freestyle connection, and the poster owner loved the final product. Now he has a cool new and totally free piece of artwork to decorate a sleek bachelor pad. I took the frame not knowing what I would use it for, and I'm so glad I did!

The repurposed frame with its new poster

Happy freestyling!

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.

Oak-frame and a historical photograph

The modern cell phone, so useful, and so hard to fix if anything goes wrong. Sigh. Such is the case with the history of this little project. Photos were taken, then the phone decided not to turn back on, and the photos shall remain locked inside for the foreseeable future. Oh well, not everything needs to be recorded for posterity I suppose. You'll just have to imagine that once upon I time I found a dusty botanical print with green matting, intact glass, and a dark oak frame.... and the wheels started turning.

I know woods like wenge and teak are trendy, but I have developed a 'thing' for oak ever since I discovered the finish technique known as cerusing.  Remember this cerused bookshelf and the cerused side table that were stripped, dyed with aniline dye, brushed with shellac, and then finished with liming wax to bring out the texture of the grain?

Bold and beautiful cerused oak bookshelf

Sort of green and weathered cerused finish on side table

Those projects made me look at oak in a new way.  Instead of associating oak with pickled pink 80s faux-tropical furniture or heavy pieces sitting next to overstuffed couches in musty rec room basements I see the potential. Oak is interesting. The grain of oak is beautiful once you decide to see it that way, and vintage solid oak furniture is relatively abundant and affordable to folks on a DIY budget.   

Now that you've been refreshed about the joys of oak and cerusing let me say that I decided not to ceruse this oak picture frame after all.  I had a friend moving into an apartment that needed to be furnished, and I asked her if she wanted the frame, answer = yes.  Her style leans towards natural wood tones, so after having it sanded down to the raw oak I finished it with only clear furniture wax. Specifically I used two coats of Miss Mustard Seed's furniture wax (and no, I'm not being compensated to mention that product, I just like it).  

This style of picture frame had a series of tiny nails pressing all the backing, art, and glass together against the wood frame.  This makes it inconvenient to swap out the framed art, so here it is in an almost-finished-but-without-the-finishing-nails-installed state. Still, you get the picture, such a beaut!

Oak frame, sanded and finished with furniture wax, corner detail

Refinished oak frame, original green mat, new historical photograph

The green matting was part of the original find, and the botanical print is still there in the back, peeking through next to the white edges of the photo mat.  Maybe someday I'll get a new picture of those, for now you'll just have to enjoy the lovely salvaged and refinished frame in its new home.  The entire piece now brings a bit of warmth to the cool tones on the walls and floors in this downtown rental apartment.

Happy freestyling, and don't be afraid to take that thing that you're not sure how to use, offer it to a friend and you just might make their day!

June bonanza update, freestyle finds in their new home

You may remember the June bonanza post, or not.
 Basically I found a bunch of furniture and gave it to some friends who have a house to furnish.
Their car was packed.

There has been some progress in the redecorating front. 

The small metal and glass coffee table has a home in a sunny corner.

The large wooden corner shelving unit now supports a television and entertainment center.

And this Ikea botanical wall hanging brightens up the stairwell. 

Happy freestyling and sharing!