Picture Framing Tips

We are pleased to offer the following suggestions for your consideration:

Protection
Original and valued art require acid-free mats and mountings. They must also be protected from dust, dirt and moisture.

Display
Mats, liners and frames should complement your art work not interfere with it. The mat or liner provides a breathing space between the artwork and the frame. Small artwork usually requires a wider mat width to avoid crowding the artwork.

Mats, liners and frames should complement your art work not interfere with it. The mat or liner provides a breathing space between the artwork and the frame. Small artwork usually requires a wider mat width to avoid crowding the artwork.

Select framing colours to match the art not the surroundings.

Rustic scenes require rustic frames. Delicate art requires delicate framing.

Warm art should be complemented with warm framing, cool art with cool framing.

The frame, mat and liner should re-enforce texture and colour by repetition of common elements.

A mat or liner should not be the same width as the frame. Repetition of widths is visually boring.

For Oil Paintings
For oils on canvas with a stretcher frame, a strong frame is required to prevent warping. No mat or glass is required but a linen liner is often used.

For Watercolours
Frames for watercolours are usually narrow and shallow. Medium to wide mats are used. Glass is used and double or triple mats are used to keep the artwork from contacting the glass. The use of multiple mats also supports complimenting some of the more subtle colours or textures of the art.

Pastels
Frame as for watercolours with spacers under the mat to prevent chalk dust from falling on the beveled bottom edge of the mat. This also ensures that the glass does not touch the chalky surface of the painting.

Photos
Frame as for Watercolours and use metallic frames if so desired. For Portrait photos, you may use a liner instead of a mat. These may first be dry mounted and laminated for protection.

Glass
Non-glare glass may be used where light reflection is a problem. It is not used on original or valued art because of the change in contrast its produces. With multiple mats this effect is even greater. Conservation regular or non-reflective glass is needed for valued artwork to reduce the damaging effect of UV rays.

Needlework
Needlework projects including, crosstitch, needlepoint and crewel should be conservation framed, which means that all materials that touch the art must not do damage to the art and should preserve it to the highest degree possible. The needle art must be mounted to a conservation mount such as acid free foamcore board in such a way that it can be removed in the future.

Acid-free Matting is used with many needle art projects and Crewel is often framed with liners and frames as an oil painting would be.