Getting the stock ready to frame a 30″x24″x3/4″ and a 20″x16″x3/4″ painting.
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One of three ripped in half
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7/8′ line scribed and surface lightly sanded -
Glued and nailed
Finally
I just couldn’t decide what color to paint the frame when I found a can of white semi-gloss. I grabbed a 4″ foam roller and finally got this thing done.
But first, let’s review what this was meant to be. I have a cheap shelving unit on my Google Meat/Zoom wall that has a bunch of gnarly things on the shelves that I’d prefer hiding. I thought about making doors but I’ve been using a painting leaned against it for so long that I’m kind of used to just having something leaning up against it.
I was at the big orange box store and found a 24″x48″ chalkboard/whiteboard reversible panel for $6. I ripped 12″ off of one end and using a 12″x12″ scrap piece of a white shelf I had laying around made a 36″ square collage of the three parts.
I had some scrap lumber-grade 2″x2″s and routed a 1/4″ channel in them to use as a crude frame for it:
They needed to filled and sanded before I put it together. 
But I had some small batch, 9 yo bourbon instead. 
A couple of weeks later I had it put together. 
But then there was a big brush fire a block or two away. 
Fortunately our local FD are only about a mile down the road and they had it under control pretty quickly. 
A few days later I had all of the holes filled 
But then this view out the back door made me wonder just how long it’s been since I’ve had some braised rabbit with a morel cream sauce. 
A week later all the holes are filled and the panel’s are taped off. 1st coat is done. 
Unfortunately Tru Burger was running late with my to go order. Or maybe I forgot to call it in before I went there, whatever. 
The BLT, Green Chili burger and Parm frys took a while so I wasn’t able to do more than one coat that day. 
Another week and 3 coats later… 
Uneven
So I had finished filling and sanding the four sides of the new frame and started to put it together.
Every one of the corners was cut incorrectly. All were off about a degree and a half.
Turns out the tab that marks the vertical angle on my chop saw was bent and I hadn’t noticed. Not sure how it happened but it’s fixed now.
So Tomorrow Came and Went
And this was all I got done…
They needed to be filled, sanded and painted.
But oddly enough I just didn’t feel like spending the weekend wearing a mask.
So here’s where they’ll sit
While the days, they will pass by
And I breath easy
Setting up for Tomorrow
Floating in Spiced Wine
Yesterday, Saturday morning, Tammy asked me to make a “Floating Frame” for one of her 36″x 48″ x 3/4″ paintings. I made the frame so the painting would have a strong 1/8″ border to float in and would be recessed by about the same.
I bought more 8 foot lengths of the 2-1/2″ x 3/4″ primed white stock.
Then I fired up my Bonamassa Pandora station and got busy.
I ripped some of it in half for the inner frame and mounted it an inch back from the front of the frame using glue and 1-1/8′ brads.
I hate those UPC stickers. 
I should have taken more time to clean up the glue. 
Filling holes 
We ended up getting the Spiced Wine. 
I bought a Wagner Flexio 3000 
It made short work of this frame 
About 1 hour and… 
3 coats later… 
It’s definitely the same shade 
as the sample but 
it’s not quite as dark. 
Watching 
the 
paint 
dry.
I drilled some over-sized holes through the frame and ran some 1-1/4″ screws from the back into the frame of the canvas.
So here is Oh in its new “Spiced Wine” floating frame:
I’ll hang it tomorrow, it’s Miller time.
Ok, so it was a week later but it’s hung now.
Taken with my phone so add a grain of salt to these shots.
Make sure you click on the pix then click again to see the full rez image anyway.
Pix Art 2
Ugghh, yesterday was not one of my best days.
I spent an hour resetting the new lights and adjusting the camera settings. I had my little HP laptop patched into the camera to view the camera screen and the resulting pix we were taking.
I set the camera to F5.6, ISO 100, and the shutter speed to 1/20. It looked great so we spent the next five hours shooting pix of 27 of Tammy’s pieces of art.
Then we looked at them on my main desktop (the MSI) with my two 24′ monitors. All of the pix were still too dark.
I can use them for the prints but I would have to do some major adjustments in Photoshop on each and every shot. I don’t want to do that. I want to do this right from the jump and take better pictures.
I ordered new bulbs so I have 5500K CFL Day Light bulbs in all six sidelights. I’ll spend more time adjusting the camera settings and check the pix on my MSI before I proceed to take all of them over again next Saturday.
I also had a lot of trouble with the really cheap plastic tripod I have. It was on clearance at Walmart for like $20 a few years ago. It was “good enough” for the little point and click cameras I had but was extremely clunky trying to use it with this much bigger camera. Just trying to frame the shot was a struggle and took way longer than it should have and every time I pushed the button to take a picture the camera moved. It was beyond frustrating.
The new aluminum tripod I ordered will be here Tuesday.
Pix Art Studio
So Tammy finally decided she was ready to start selling her paintings. To sell them online we need really good, as in professional level, photos of them.
First, we needed a new camera. Our old $40 cameras weren’t going to cut it. After some research and consultation with a couple of professional photographers we know I decided to get a Canon Rebel T7. I would have loved to spend a grand or six on a top of the line DSLR but it really isn’t necessary to break the bank for this.
Next, we needed good lighting. Lighting is critical for getting high quality pix if you want to sell prints of your artwork. I saw no need to break the bank for this either and I found a lighting kit for just under $60 delivered.
Finally, we needed a studio with a plain white background. I really didn’t want to just pick a wall in the house and paint it flat white so I decided to build a temporary wall. I made an 8′ x 5′ frame out of cheap 2″ x 2″ dimensional lumber and tacked an old white sheet to it. Then tacked the whole thing to the wall in the living room with just one screw.
And then took a few test shots of one of her paintings.
I think this is pretty good for a first attempt with the camera on a semi-automatic setting. I’ll be doing more research to find the ideal non-automatic settings as time permits.
So it turns out this is not going to be quite as easy as I thought. The painting below (On the Beach) is probably my favorite of her abstracts. And definitely my pick for favorite frame that I’ve made for her paintings.
As you can see the shot is not level, appears to be taken a bit from the left, and most troublesome is that it looks a little like a a fish-eye lens was used. I know the frame is straight, so I’m going to have to look to see what it is with the camera that is causing it to balloon the shot like that. (Spoiler Alert, I figured it out, see below, and wow have I forgotten a lot about photography!)
It also looks like hanging the paintings isn’t going to work. I can’t guarantee the painting is staying perpendicular to the camera making it look like I am taking the picture more from one side than the other.
THE NEXT DAY:
Well, I added a shelf to the screen wall and it has eliminated a lot of the issues I had with trying to hang the art. Now I just have to figure out the correct ISO, F8, etc settings on the camera.
LATER THAT SAME DAY:
OK, I’ve gotten the Fish-eye issue under control. I have limited space to work so I had the camera pretty close to the subject, with the lens set to anywhere from 24mm-35mm. I’ve made more room and pulled the camera back so the lens is set to about 50mm.
My lights aren’t quite bright enough to do an ISO of 100 @ F8 so it’s now set to 200. A little adjustment of the WB (I still used the wrong setting) and here is my latest attempt:
It’s better but I still don’t have quite enough light so I ordered another, much brighter, set of light stands. They will hopefully be here Thursday, Dec 3rd.
TWO MORE DAYS LATER:
The new lights came in Wednesday afternoon so as soon as I was done with work I put them together and set up a new shot. I set the ISO back to 100 but that was the only change I made to the camera.
The difference is subtle but the lighting is much more even. I probably should have tried this with a little more colorful piece. I think I might try one more shot at ISO 200 just to make sure but I think I’m ready to go.
The only thing that might improve things at this point would be a good light meter but I’ll hold off on that purchase for now.
A New Frame
I’ve made many frames for my wife’s paintings. Here’s one for a 20″ x 24″ abstract she recently finished.
It was pretty simple. I cut a 5/8″ dado into some 3/4′ x 2-1/2 primed stock on my router table. Then I used the router and a chisel to cut out the areas need to interlock it all together. I used a little glue and some 1-1/4″ brads after squaring it up.
