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Failure knocked loudly on my door today getting me down. What got me up again was a young buck with four points nonchalantly passing through the yard. Pausing for a moment to defecate and pose for a snap shot, which I snapped with an urgency that blurred the photograph, he then stepped silently away taking my defeat with him. Tomorrow I can fix the failures I had in the studio; today, I polished up the handle on the big front door (cleaned) for my kids coming in early June for an annual kiss or three...AND matted Kelly. Frames By Mail is the best price for matting I've found. A
double mat with acid free foam board backing for the 9 x 11" drawing cost thirty dollars shipped. I ordered online last Sunday; I got it today. The acid free, cotton mat has the "waffle" imprint--like in the old days---not the flat , smooth surfaced junk frame shops are calling mat these days. I chose a greige color to compliment the gray pencil tones and did a double mat of the same color. Ever since I saw Casey Klahn's white mat on white mat in one of his Christmas posts last year, I liked the look of the treatment. It's rich. It's important. It's architectural. I hope the kids think so too--particularly Kelly.
I like the symbolism of the deer taking your defeat with him:-) Thanks for mentioning frames by mail - I need to know! Kelley looks great - love her pose!
ReplyDeleteThank you. The deer traversing the yard did take my focus off what was not going well in the studio and reminded me what was going wrong wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with more work. Then polishing up the silver and brass doodads around the house also worked off my distress. Cleaning is excellent therapy. Guys don't know that. Too bad.
DeleteThanks. Kelly is coming to visit in less than a month. I was going to give this sketch to her last year, but hadn't finish it up with a proper matboard to protect it while she traveled home.
The sketch looks stunning! And lucky you - the deer pooped on your lawn. :) I'll be right over with my wheel-barrow and "apple picker". Barn grunt to the rescue!
ReplyDeleteThanks kathryn. It came out okay for having been done over a couple of nights watching TV.
DeleteAs for the deer poop, I prefer they do it in the woods. I walk over there! And I gave a way my pooper-scooper years ago.
Kelly is just awesome in this wonderful frame..love that oldish look !
ReplyDeleteDo you think it looks old? What's old about it? I couldn't have used an off white color surround, the light weight drawing would have dissipated. This "green gray" adds weight and compliments the gray tones in the rendering.
DeleteDear Linda, I didn't mean old in a negative way at all, on the contrary , what I meant was that it gives a..should we call it 'vintage look' , kind of glamorous film star look, and I think it is absolutely perfect.
DeleteI would have been too slow to even get a photograph of the deer, so you did amazingly well with this pic. Your drawing does look good in the mount, sounds interesting with the waffle design, it sets it off well.
ReplyDeleteThe deer are rather "tame" around here. I found my camera relatively quickly, but not as quickly as I used to.
DeleteI live on the nature trail and there's no shooting allowed.
It's a ragmat, with an imprint in it that looks like a course cotton or linen. That look is how mats just came years ago. I was shocked to see that now the less expensive boards are just plain boards--the kind I used to use to dry mount my photographs to.
I haven't been by in a while. Sorry about that. I will check in soon to see what's up with Ann.
Thanks for the matting info; I'm going to try it out.
ReplyDeleteBet she loves it (the gift, that is).
Now, I'm thinking I should frame it. Frames By Mail has a nice selection of wood plus the metals. They use Plexiglas instead of glass for obvious shipping reasons. I always buy non glare. With these people you do have to put the package together yourself; all the parts come separately.
DeleteA dull silver would look good.
DeleteI'm a wood gal. My current frame preference is a cherry veneer (not too red, not too gold toned) flat top, 1 3/8" It's rich looking. The grain is not obnoxious. Unfortunately, that frame and the non glare Plexiglas sells for that size (14 x 18) for $107.00 FBM says anything over a hundred is shipped free. So far I'm not seeing that credit in the invoice. So metal it might be? We ought to be in the frame business instead of the art business.
DeleteIs matting what I call, 'backed & mounted'? That's to say, the backing and the 'surround' ... before framing? Looks like it is from your photo? The nearest size I get done to that is 11.7" x 8.3" @ Trade Price = £6.50 (no P & P) that's about $11. Off that I would get the tax back $2 - because I run a company. We can't compare quality though Linda - your's might be far better. I get a good deal though and it comes plastic shrink wrapped market ready.
ReplyDeleteLove the picture btw!
No, you win. That's cheap--inexpensive. I went into a frame shop I heard was a reasonable place last weekend to have the "flap mat" cut. The woman wanted $86.00. Okay, taking away one window mat brought it down to $56.00. It would be ready in two weeks.
DeleteI went to Michael's, a craft store chain. They wanted $20.00 for a single window mat with a hinged back; it would take two weeks. They don't stock matboard.
Another alternative: buy a mat cutter and do it myself. Okay a couple of hundred for the mat cutter and 15.00 a 32 x 40 sheet.
The minimum order is 6 sheets.
Since works on paper are not key for me, I could just ignore all this, but when I do do one I do like to finish it with a mat--and I'm a sucker for that double mat treatment. I think it allows me to charge a higher price.
Thanks, I did Kelly last year. It came our art deco in feeling.
What a pretty deer :-) Failure? Nah, anything can be fixed. Well, most things can be.
ReplyDeleteNot my Whirlpool double wall oven. Yesterday's failures were easily remedied and not costly.
DeleteToday's failure is going to cost me--I'm going to have to either have the Whirlpool fixed or replace it. I'm for replacing, since we've owned the oven for 13 years; I only ran the self cleaning mechanism twice when the it blew the interior fuse and thermostat; I had those replaced for 500 four years ago; And now, it has blown those parts again the second time I used the self cleaning feature. It's lemon.
Hola Linda. Es un ciervo muy simpático y el retrato me encanta!!
ReplyDeleteHe was a lovely deer to so patiently wait for me to get my camera, zoom in and get the lucky shot. It is good of him also to look into my camera lens. Very cooperative young buck.
DeleteThank my wife for the mat idea, Linda.
ReplyDeleteYour deer are in velvet, now.
Your drawings are very good, Linda. I hope you post many more.