The Frame is the Thing
- Kaaren Poole
- Sep 8
- 3 min read
It’s been a long time now that I’ve been creating art without framing, and I love it! Not only is it less expensive, but it also makes the artwork totally mine. Here’s an early example from when I was starting out with mixed media.
It’s pretty big—16” wide by 26” tall—and is done on a cradled board that I made myself from ¼” thick MDF (medium density fiberboard) and 1 ½” wide strips of ¾” thick pine.
An Aside about Woodworking
It’s such a blessing to have a few woodworking skills, a chop saw, and a table saw, as I can make my own cradled boards as well as other surfaces to paint on. But, at least for the cradles boards, you don’t really need the table saw because you can get the MDF cut to size at the home improvement store where you can purchase ¼” thick MDF in 2’ x 2’ or 2’ x 4’ pieces. If you like to paint or do mixed media on wood, it’s so useful to be able to make these.
The Tree
I remember being inspired for this piece by a picture of a tree in a magazine ad. The ad was for an upholstered chair, and the chair was sitting in an otherwise empty room with a huge picture window behind it. The window gave a view of this beautiful tree. Although animals are nearly always my subject matter, this time the tree would be the star of my show.
After priming the MDF, I carefully glued a piece of masa paper on for the central image. By 'carefully,' I mean I didn’t want any wrinkles but also I didn’t want any of the glue to get on the front of the masa paper. I was planning to paint the tree with watercolor, and any glue that got on the front of the paper would repel the watercolor.
Once the watercolor painting was complete and thoroughly dry, I sprayed it with Krylon Workable Fixatif then sealed it with a coat of Liquitex Matte Medium.
I had a fairly nice painting of a tree, but the piece needed a whole lot more. Fortunately, I’d left a wide border all the way around. As it turned out...
The Frame is the Thing
I had so much fun with the mixed media border. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of my mixed media work on paper, largely in my art journals. As I write about this piece, though, I realize that working on board provides more options, notably with heavy texture. And although one can certainly layer lots of paint on paper, especially when working with thin washes, MDF perhaps also opens up more possibilities for layering. In any case, what strikes me about the border on this piece is the amount of layering and the heavy texture in some places—heavy, at least for me!
Here are a few details you might enjoy:
I especially like the top of the piece with all the gold and the faceted glass cabochon. And I’d definitely have to say that in this piece the frame is the thing.
Taking the time to really look at this piece again and write about it inspires me to do more work like this. But how to make the time? The eternal question…
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