Nobody ever said that your frames had to follow a set of rules, yet for some reason, there seems to be a common theme among framing.
‘Frame a baby picture with a white frame to make it pop from the wall’. That’s a given since white frames are certainly excellent choices for getting any art to pop out from your wall displays.
However, for something that goes POP, you need to know your colours, and often just be brave enough to go for it.
For choosing a mount colour to compliment your artwork, there are two ways you can go about it, but there’s a wrong way too.
The wrong way is to choose a colour solely based on the most dominant colour in your picture. That is secondary to the location you intend on displaying your print.
If your room décor is blue, and the primary colour in your art is orange, you most certainly don’t want to go with a bright orange mount. Whilst it will certainly make your art pop out from the wall, and draw the eye, it will attract it for all the wrong reasons.
The main concern with your mount colour is always to match it to the environment you’ll be displaying it in. If the mount colour doesn’t compliment the main colour in the picture, it’s no big deal. It only becomes a big deal when it doesn’t compliment your room.
People will notice a bright prominent colour on your wall more than they will in your picture.
If your art is bright, you can tone it down with a neutral mount, and if it’s already pretty dull in terms of colour vibrancy, you can switch things up a notch with a more prominent colour.
What about the frames?
The frames are of prime importance and should be reflected in the type of art you’re framing. Again, there are no rules. What you say goes. Whatever you feel works to get the display right, go with that.
It’s the same for artists. They draw, paint, or sketch whatever they feel inspired to create. It could be a landscape portrait, or it could be abstract art. The first part of the artistic process is getting creative with whatever tools you use, be it paint, watercolours, or a digital camera.
Use your tools, create your work, then throw any rules you thought there were out the window and go with the flow until you find a frame that works for you.
Here are a few tips:
- Catching a candle glare
Away back in the 18th century, maybe even prior to that, those big portrait paintings you still see in historic hotels, and castles around the country are framed with massive gold leaf, ornate and massively heavy picture frames.
Do you ever notice how the light hits off them?
It radiates all over them.
The glass or acrylic glazing and the crevices around the frame all reflect light subtly, which vastly improves the appearance of them. If you plan to hang your art in the dining room, or in a room where you’re likely to use candles, ornate frames will work a charm at reflecting light. The same light concepts can be utilised in a room with multiple lights, or even a crystal chandelier.
Go ornate and let the frame radiate light around the room.
If you do choose that option then you will find that the brightly coloured mount won’t be too eye appealing, and soft colours will work best. That being said, you can do a lot with a white ornate frame with a mount colour to match the décor of the room you’ll be displaying the art in.
- Use double mounts to bring in a tad of a bold colour
You don’t need to go too bold if you aren’t comfortable doing that. You can have a prominent mount with a soft colour, and just the slightest hint of a brighter colour introduced through the double mount approach.
This is the simplest way to moderate brightness within your frame.
- Go with what you feel is right
There are no rules to follow so even if you find that you can’t find quite the right mount to compliment your art and the room, there’s nothing to say you can’t hand-paint on a mount, and create something unique of your own to add to the custom feel of your art.
The only considerations for your framing and display options are what you truly like the appeal of. If it’s gothic, go for that. If it’s bright summery, use mounts to capture the tone.
The frames are only part of your display options, but pay attention to the mount colour because you can frame something truly unique when you do something unusual to make the art pop out on your wall using just the mounts for effect.