Decorative Mount Tuition

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Adyc
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Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Adyc »

I am a hobby framer looking to progress. I have done basic framing courses, and shadowboxes. I mainly frame my own photographs, and would like to make the mount more decorative. I am happy with double mounts but am looking at v grooves, coloured bevels, can anybody recommend tuition please, I am Telford based?
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

Perhaps if I may I would like share a little of my own thinking about mount decoration. Some aspects of mount deorationI tend to think are more commerially worthwhile than others, not only in term of how long it takes to doing some the decorative effects vs what customers are most likely to pay for such work, but which types of mount decoration are going to be popular with customers. I think that it is probably most helpful, to initially learn how to create the decorative mount effects which will be most helpful to your business potential. For myself multiple V grooves equally spaced on nice mount border widths often looks very classy and by not involving and painting effects can produce a very good customer reaction without anything significate to go wrong and spoil any of the work which you have been doing. I also like to produce deeper coloured bevels, but without going all the way to necessarily to produce 5mm deep bevel mount and it's quite often that my deep bevel mounts are only perhaps 3mm thick, which not only looks exacts right for smaller artworks and mounts, but often is a great way of use left over materials.

Sticking two standard thickness pieces of mountboard left over together, in order to create a piece of 3mm thick mountboard can enable you to produce quite profitable deep mounts white can look very impressive indeed, without any excessive expeniture. I paint my deep mounts by hand using a mixture of Acrylic paints and Craig and Rose Chalky emusion paint and this helps to create a very smooth and matt type of finish. Usually I like to apply two coats, to get the very best resulting finish. There are various training providers to choose from and I would tend to suggest that it would be good to discuss you requirement with any potential training providers before you make any final decision. Looking at your location, I am wondering about suggesting either contacting Jeremy from gesso and bole, or perhaps framers equipment, to discuss what they might be able to offer in regard to suitable possible training opportunities. To me co-ordinating decorating mount design and frame design at the same time might be something worth thinking about as a combined process.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Adyc
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Adyc »

Mark,

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated, I will take on board what you have written and give it a try.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

Your training should ideally be focussed on your actual personal requirements rather than just what somebody decided would make up a nice course content. Doing the things which are really good for you and what will really appeal to your customers can really make a big difference to devoloping your customer base and the right image for your business. I have a primary focus of handfinishing and stacked moulding frames and this has had a major effect on how customers perceive what I do and what I have to offer. Well, mount decoration could do the same for your business! I was very focussed on the handfinishing aspect of my business in the early days and that really was my thing. In the same way, you could develop your own focus on mount decoration with the same objectives in ming. It's another aspect of how you can add something really special concerning the presentation of what you do and win customers for you self based upon something which you are able to offer rather than purely competing on the basis of who is offering the cheapest overall price.

The race to the bottom based on prices has the unfortunate tendancy to mean that eventually you could be working twice as hard, for only half the income. Just because you can beat other framers prices, does not necessarily leave that much left after you have paid all of your bills and overheads, It's not just about turnover, but have enough profit to pay yourself a worthwhile income and not to have to struggle every day to survive. I've been there and done that and it can be a very hard life and usually it's not a necessary way of doing things. Every framing job which you undertake can be a stunning advert for you and why what you do is a much nicer and very professional result than your competition has to offer. Getting the very lowest price becomes a lot less important when something important and special is being framed and you are albe to show your customer and example of something which just looks so much better than what the compettion is able to offer. Literally what you are able to do with your mounts and mountboard. is where there is a real significance in where you and add some extra value and extra profit for you.

Every other framer can make frames, but not every other framer will have the design and presentation skill when it comes to mount cutter and decoration skills. In my own case, I recognise that there are mount decoration techniques which work particularly well for me, in terms of time taken to implement a specific technique vs the potential for profit and the customers perceived value vs cost to them. I don't have a CMC, but producing a double mount with triple spaced v grooves looks reall great and does not need to be excessively difficult, or time consuming to do, but it looks really stunning. I find that painted deep mount bevels involve a bit more time to do, so it is good to have various options at various prices for your customers to choose from. You just never know, what any given customer is likely to decide to go for. Some customrs who start of talking about the best value for money, will actually decide to spend more money than you were expecting. This is where pre-produced mount chevron samples and easy to understand pricing illustrations will help you a lot.

Really straight forward and visually well presented options can be a key way to go in these cases. It's very easy to frighten of some customers by making it all too complicated. I have a few things where I offer some fixed price package deals, which greatly simplify the customers thinking process and make the customers choices simple to diectly compare between various options. I am quite big on deep sided frames, as this creates quite a lot of impact to some framing jobs and the extra internal depth can work very well in terms of allowing extra space inside the frame for deeper mount bevels, slips, or whatever. Slips are a real big thing in my shop, almost all my slips and made from leftover bits of moulding and add greatly to the impression of extra depth and shape. I have shared my liking for deep slips on the forum before and the fact is that too many factory made slips lack depth, shape and wow factor. I use quite a lot of various moulding, which means that I often have a good supply of left overs and where these left over include nice profiled features, I would be foolish not to include some of these features into the profile of the production of the slip.

This can be a very simple and easy way to create a interesting looking slip from your waste which almost cost you nothing, but when it is finished does not look cheap and chearful. I have a useful number of woodworking machine tools and I aim to minise any complicated ways of working to keep my time and cost low. Hence I can offer something quite impressive at an extra price which does not sound excessive, but still at a really useful profit for me. Mount decoration can be a very important part of the whole presentation. I also use some factory made flat slips and a fillet to the slip as a sort of stacked slip adding a little extra depth and shape and the quite often use the as hand painted mount slips. Quite a lot of factory produced slips and fillets when comined together can create a really interesting combination at a relatively reasonable cost. Yes, definitely look at what mount decoration and deep bevel mounts, or mount slips can do for you. Don't be affraid to experiment with your own ideas and cost them to see what potential there is for added profit for you. Some of this may be a good way forward for you. Pick what fit you ideas and will work for. The rest does not matter.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Steve N
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Steve N »

Hi
You can use the search on this Forum, to look for different topics, if you type in 'Painted Bevels' come up with a few threads, try this one, it does have 'How To' in it, one my myself :giggle: :oops:
https://www.theframersforum.com/viewtop ... b9#p133585
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prospero
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by prospero »

When I first started off (1984) I dallied with all the various decoration things and they were very enjoyable to do and
very satisfying. But most of them I have never had cause to use them on an actual job. :lol:
V-grooves are very useful. Also adding a gold line around the mount window (same thing really). Remember, people like things
that enhance the image. You can easily overdo it with complicated geegaws. They won't appreciate your skill at mount decoration.
Concentrate on the design. :wink:
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

V grooves are very useful and I like them a lot. I have not done pen lines on mounts for years. I find V groove very much easier to do and they look quite up to date too! Painted deep bevels can look very dramatic and customers very often will like them a lot, but I don't even offer wash line mounts at all these days.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Justintime »

Have a look at Lions 9849/50/51/52.
These are the booklets from Russ Wood of Grey Owl framing. They're also available from him direct as pdfs.
He's an expert on all things bevel and mount related.
Also worth following him on facebook to see some of his work and processes.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Justintime »

If you have a mount cutter like a keencut, V grooves are fairly straightforward and instructions are available in the manual/online.
If not you could consider an embossed line around the mount. I have used one of these..

Buy yourself one of these, you'll need one for any sort of lined mount decoration, you place it against the bevel and pencil or pin mark where you want the lines to be.
https://www.lionpic.co.uk/p/7822/Longridge-Corner-Gauge
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

Totally agree! Embossed mounts look really great and can be easier to do than V grooves.
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prospero
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by prospero »

One tool I would recommend for mount cutting is an Agate burnisher. Run it along the top edge of a freshly cut window
to flatten off the slight 'kick-up' you get. A small detail, but it makes the finishing touch. :D

** Don't use it for burnishing gold afterwards. :roll:
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by David »

You might like to look at a series of videos I did for Keencut, they are free and there's no registration, available from Keencut and YouTube. They cover from basic mount cutting through V grooves, offset corners and coloured bevels. I use coloured bevels quite a lot, they can be quick and easy to do and offer a lot of creative opportunities something a little different to the usual white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0uqTdd2y4

They should get you started, hope you find them useful.
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David
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by David »

Some examples of coloured bevels, part of a series of Porsche pictures using the same mount and frame but picking out the colours of individual cars with coloured bevels, so they look a matching set but each one is customised to the car.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Rainbow »

That's an excellent video - very well put across. Thank you. I'll have a look at some of the other videos as well.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by David »

This is another example, the bottom mount is white and the two bevels are painted red and blue to give the colours of the RAF roundal for this Officers Commission. With two layers of mountboard you can show four colours. The bevel around the RAF albatross is also painted gold.
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David
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by David »

This is the link to the Keencut website, there is a link to the master classes down the page on the right hand side.

https://www.keencut.com/

I also saw an ad for them on the Forum here.
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

Great thread so far. Interesting thought from Prospero about the agate burnisher, Plebs like me were taught to burish the edges of the bevels using the back of your finger nail,but I now use a small bone folder, which is a bit cheaper that buying the agate burnisher.
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prospero
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by prospero »

Back in the '90s I did a lot of the trad Line and Wash mounts. A dying skill, although I used dry powders for
the panels. I was a dab-hand at them. They are very stressful to do - one blob and you have knackered the job.
They have all but vanished from the framer's repertoire, partly because the modern generation want a more
contemporary look and partly because some framers can't do them.
I did them on my own watercolours. One chap who had a big collection with washlined mounts decided to 'update'
and I replaced them all with a simpler pale grey with an off-white reveal which had a single V-groove. It was a bit
soul-destroying to junk all my old mounts but I had to concede that the new look was good. I also re-finished my trad
gold frames with a dragged grey over dark green. That looked good too. Hey-Ho................. :roll: :D :ninja:

Washlines still have a place on the right image. They did tend to get used on inappropriate subjects however. :P
Antiquarian prints. Old maps. old watercolours in the traditional style. That's the sort of thing is where they score. :D
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Steve N »

Not your average framer wrote: Sat 04 Jun, 2022 9:17 am Great thread so far. Interesting thought from Prospero about the agate burnisher, Plebs like me were taught to burish the edges of the bevels using the back of your finger nail,but I now use a small bone folder, which is a bit cheaper that buying the agate burnisher.
I just use the back of a teaspoon, to do that, still have the same one 30+ years on, don't use it for anything else
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Re: Decorative Mount Tuition

Post by Not your average framer »

It's quite a few years ago since I last did a wash line mount. Most customers did not want to pay enough for the time which they used to take. I generally like to offer other possibilities which look great are you canget right every time, without a lot of effect. Closely spaced V groove are a particular favorite and it not that difficult to do once you have got it all figure out It has the advantage that it does need wider mount borders to do it and customers who want this sort of look will not be looking for cheap mounts with skinny borders. I like to allow a wide enough spacing between the V groves and the mount aperture, as the V grooves don't look right if they are too close to the mount aperture. I really like to produce these as double mounts and I'm not a great fan of mount boards with textured surfaces, I like super smooth and dense mountboards like the Arqadia 400 series alpfa cellulose mountboards, they look ready great for painted beveels and reveals. Having been out of action for the last few years, I'm not really sure if these are still available.

Deeper mounts are quite a favorite thing with me, as they really stand out for other mounts. 2.5mm thick mount board produces really stunning cut bevels and will take really amasing looking deep V grooves. One smaller sized frames, I will often layer two pieces of standard 1.4mm conservation board to make up a sigle 2.8mm thick board and it looks realy great. It does not happen very often, but some times I cut a deep V groove and find a nasty black lump in the middle of the board, which is very annoying. I also doing a lot of painted mount bevels and mount reveals. I paint these using acrylic gouche, which produces a very silky smooth finish and just looks the business. As many forum members will probably already realise, I like to re-purpose and re-use my left overs and less useful mountboard colours in the form of scraps and left overs are a prime target to be used for producing painted mount bevels and mount reveals. I do quite a lot of these, especially for up market ready made frames. I find it easier to sell up market ready made frames, than more normal ready made frames at lower prices.

Acrylic gouache seems very effective and covering over other colours and just looks great. I don't mask off where I am painting the mount reveals , but just roughly paint to a rough line and let the front mount cover the edge and stich the two mounts together with strong double sided tape in my cold roller machine, with plenty of pressure to ensure a really solid and permanent bond. I get my industrial grade Tesa double sided tape from a local packaging supplier, and the tape is suposed to be good for abound 40 to 45 years. It is not a particularly expensive tape if you buy it in quantity from a local packaging company. I buy a box of 24 full size reels and use it a lot. It is not suitable for temporary and easy removable purposes at all and I have another tape which I use for when I want the separate it afterwards. I laminate layer of Simons BACK/01 to produce thicker backing boards to support items framed in box frames, where I need a stronger suuport. Simons BACK/01 is a basic corrogated backing board, but it becomes very strong when you laminate it in layers, with flutes running in opposite diections.

I also sandwich Simons Back/01 with mount board off cuts to produce glass spacers for my cheaper box frames, which are mostly bought by customers who are framing items to sell on and like reasonable looking box frames at quantity trade prices. I use 2 layer of BACK/01 and I layer of mount board. When stuck together and with nice sharp blades on the Morso, if you are cutting along the line of the flutes, you can mitre the ends of the box frame spacers, so that the will nicely side into position into the frames. Stcking the 2 layers of BACK/01 together with the flute running in the same direction does not suggest that this is going to be particularly straight and strong, but cutting these spacers to size with the flutes running the other way does not look so neat and tidy. Surprisingly enough having the flutes running the other way to what seem instinctive, is not a problem and the resulting spacers are really straight and solid. I make these spacers in batches and paint the mount board off cuts using a 4 inch foam decorators roller and a 50/50 mixture of Craig and Rose chalky emulsion and acrylic paint which covers any existing mount board colours very thoroghly.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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