After feeling so zapped of energy over the past few days I decided to have an easier day today, but fate thwarted this! I decided to start work on the frame for The Starcrossed Escape Of The Psychological Cosmonaut. I had made a frame for it a few years ago but was and am considering new framing options for this undoubted masterpiece. A new frame with a fancy moulding might improve the painting, but having looked at my frame, it was in good condition and rather nice. It needed some work, however.
I started by distressing the wood to remove some of the current vanish and give it a matt black look. Then did the same for the outside, the frame is in two 'steps'. The hard part though was the cutting of the glazing. I cut a backing board relatively easily; the painting panel fits so well for the frame, that it was a matter of marking the board (HDF in this case) and sawing it. This fitted exactly... to the millimetre. I use this to mark the Perspex with a Sharpie marker (of course, this is covered in a plastic sheet to protect it). Working with any plastic glazing is nightmarish... it's very easy to slip when using a normal knife, very easy to scratch it. Even leaning on it accidentally can cause scratches or marks, so exceptional care must be taken. Dust is always a problem, but that is a matter for final framing. Today I was only cutting it to size and I decided to use a jigsaw, having had many bad experiences with snap off knives and plastic sheeting.
I experimentally sawed a part of a corner with the jigsaw. It's fortunate that I did this as the piece shattered into huge splinters of 1cm or so. I switched to a fine toothed hack-saw type blade, this worked better. I put wood on top to support the saw, avoiding any marks on the surface, then started to cut in the blazing sun. The plastic sometimes cut, sometimes melted due to the speed of the saw. Alarmingly, at the end, as the sheet vibrated, it started to crack and shatter, but fortunately in directions away from the sheet. I had to pause and rest the flapping sheet on a stool with a weight on it, but this meant moving the saw down something like an alleyway, like the Death Star Trench, flying my shaking saw, full of worry, along the tentative line. I managed the cut. Then, with care and deft gentleness, dismantled the stool, jig, table, clamps, and turned the plastic to cut the other side.
Now, to cut from the pointed or dull end? The pointed would probably vibrate less, but it would mean not seeing the line correctly or sawing left-handed. I cut from the dull end and tried to hold everything in shape. By this stage I was so hot that my glasses had filled with water. Halfway along the glass cracked, chipping off a 10mm lump into the visible area, but fortunately, I have about 20mm of leeway because the frame has a large recess. I reached the end, exhausted with tension and the effort.
I took the sheet to the frame and found it to be too big! The few millimetres of drawn edge made it a tiny bit too large. Fortunately I could cut along the smooth base to fix this, rather than revisit the fraught and jagged edges. I sandwiched the base between two 3mm pieces of wood and removed about 3mm. But alas! This was still not enough. The wavering edge was too problematical, so I sanded the convex edges by hand and, after 90 minutes to cut this one piece of plastic, it finally fitted. Cutting the spacer from mount board was trivial by comparison.
So, glazing, spacer, backing board, and painting are complete. The frame would benefit from some extra decoration, I think, perhaps some gold beading like a 17th century Dutch frame. These black and gold trimmed frames are my favourite. I will investigate beadings. For this, I can decorate and cut the beading before committing to stick it to the frame so I have some leeway.
The frame is resting under a dust cover, it must be protected in its perfection at all stages. Almost all of my paintings in the house remain wrapped. Those in storage tend to be individually bubble wrapped, ready to be moved or displayed, this keeps them generally safe. Most of those on the wall are cling wrapped to protect them from dust, but some remain visible...
It's a Fall in Green rehearsal day tomorrow, so no painting.
