Carol Coulter Framing

In my last post, I wrote about vintage posters. Now it’s vintage fans. Though I rather feel they should be referred to as ‘antique’ because they are for sure, more than 100 years old.

A few weeks ago, I had an inquiry from a new customer (a referral actually, always the best way to get business). The lady in question, was looking to get two very beautiful and very delicate, ladies’ fans mounted and framed. Both family heirlooms, the lace fan, dating back to the mid-19th century, handmade in Brussels, was to be mounted onto a silk background and the hand-painted paper fan (mid-17th century) onto a complimentary coloured board. All fine so far.

We then began to look at mouldings. She was pretty sure she wanted gold or metallic finish of some sort, but the thing we had to consider was the depth of the frame, as the fans, particularly the lace one, had very large fittings on the handle. The frame would have to be deep enough to accommodate that. As we spoke further, I realised that what she actually wanted were frames shaped to follow the curvature of the fans ie semi-circular at the top. Hmmm, not so fine any more.

After scratching my head for a while (and a bit of chin stroking, like what arty people do), I told her that unless she had an unlimited budget it was nigh on impossible. To do that sort of thing properly would of course involve steaming the wood into shape and would require the expertise of a carpenter or cabinet maker. Not something I could do. I felt that they would work equally well in straight forward frames and taking into account the complexities (and expense) of her initial idea, she agreed.

After much scouring through catalogues and presenting her with a number of options, she decided on a distressed silver finish, flat faced moulding for the lace fan and a similar antique gold finish for the painted fan. Both deep rebate from Frinton Mouldings. My client supplied the silk for the lace fan and we selected a suitable coloured mountboard for the paper fan.

Materials chosen, the first stage of the job was to attach the fans to their relevant backings. The silk was pinned onto foamboard then, using a perfectly matched thread, I sewed the lace fan into place, using as few stitches as possible, whilst ensuring it was secure. The tricky bit was the tassle. My client had said that she was happy for it to hang loose, but it looked rather messy, so again, using almost invisible stitching, I wove the thread through the individual strands and then secured the whole thing with a light covering of – hairspray! Elnett of course.

Next thing was to cover mountboard fillets with the silk in order to raise the fan from the glass and create the effect of a box or casket. That done, the easiest part of the job, was making the frame itself which all went smoothly, until I came to assemble the elements and quickly realised that the deep rebate frame, wasn’t in fact, deep enough!

More scratching resulted in the decision to build up the back of the frame with wooden fillets that I finished with pewter wax to blend in nicely with the main frame. I didn’t want this back frame to be too visible when viewed from the sides, so I made it slightly smaller and positioned it about 10mm in from the outer edge of the main frame. It worked perfectly.

The final part of the job was the addition of UV glass to protect the delicate lace from the harmful effects of sunlight. I was rather chuffed with the result, as was my client, who has since contacted me to say how delighted she is and how good they look on the wall.

Into October now and I’m piling on the layers. The weather outside is bright and sunny, but very cold and the Converse trainers have been replaced with warm socks and furry boots. It‘s quite cosy though down in my Jamaica Street workshop and I am busy getting a stack of frames ready for my next project. I’m rather excited about this because I have been employed to frame and install a series of photographs in two popular Edinburgh eateries. Completion is scheduled for early November so watch this space for updates on its progress.

The auction (Billy’s Big Charity Auction) that I blogged about last month was a huge success and raised over £10,000 on the night, so well done to everyone involved including hubs Mike Coulter who took these brilliant photos of the event.

I have just framed a cracking photograph on behalf of Theakstons (commissioned by cor agency) which recently won an award in the UK’s biggest pub photography competition Pub Life.

It was won by acclaimed snapper Graham Cornthwaite, who co-incidentally, was unofficial photographer at our wedding 19 years ago. I say unofficial because he was actually a guest, but he had to ‘sing for his supper’ so to speak. Well done Corny!

The image makes me all nostalgic for a pint of Old Peculiar (a past favourite tipple), enjoyed in the warm and cosy interior of a good old-fashioned country boozer. Which I hope to be doing next week when we spend some much overdue quality time, renting a lovely cottage down in the Scottish Borders with my husband’s family. The workshop will be closed from 21st till the 31st October. See you in November.

For the last couple of years,  I have been commissioned by The Edinburgh Festival Fringe  (@edfringe) to carry out mounting and framing for a number of key projects. Most notably Joanna Basford’s wonderful pen and ink illustrations for the Fringe 2010 identity and the brilliant entries for the schools poster competition.

I am pleased to say that I have just completed mounting the 2011 competition entries together with the framing of the winning poster which was announced on 1st June at the Museum of Childhood and is featured below. Big congratulations to Ailsa Purdie from the High School of Dundee for her fantastic. colourful design which will be seen by thousands of people in Edinburgh throughout the Festival. And if you pop along to the Museum of Childhood after 9th June you can see all 70 of the other competition entries from over 30 schools around Scotland.

Ailsa Purdie’s winning poster design framed in hand stained black frame.

Long before I became ‘Framer to the Fringe’, I was a fan of the Fringe. And if you are too, I’d like to offer what I hope is an attractive 20% discount for your own framing requirements throughout the duration of the Festival.

All you have to do to get your Fan of the Fringe Framing discount is bring along a ticket or ticket stub from any Fringe event when you visit my workshop on Jamaica Street, anytime before 29th August.

I look forward to seeing you and here’s to a fabulous Fringe!

Contact details.

As some of you will know, Ewan McIntosh of No Tosh, does lots of travelling with his job. In fact he is rarely at home for more than a few days at a time. But with the imminent arrival of baby no 2, his travels are on hold for a while, so I caught up with him earlier this week to deliver my latest framing job for him.

Ewan was recently in South Africa where he purchased a number of stunning canvases painted by a young artist called Akida, who had walked from his home in Malawi to South Africa – I’m guessing many hundreds of miles – in order to sell his art so he can make a better life for himself and his family.

The paintings are vivid and full of life and require nothing more than very simple framing, so once I had stretched the canvas, I discussed the options with Ewan’s wife, Morgane. We agreed upon a narrow black L-style moulding from Lion, specially designed to carry canvases. These two-way mouldings are clever in that they can be used in either of two ways depending on the depth of the canvas. They also have a 10mm step which makes positioning nice and easy.

I hadn’t used this moulding before, but the result was really good. So much so, that Ewan has given me another one to do which I understand will be a Christmas present for his parents.

Earlier this year, a neighbour contacted me to say she had a number of things she wanted me to look at. I popped round (to an impressive double upper with an even more impressive art collection) to discuss her requirements. One of the things she wanted framed, was a flag (or standard – get it?) or more specifically, a modern saltire, that her sister had made for one of her children. On the face of it, I didn’t think this too difficult a job, as I had already done a much bigger piece of Indian embroidery a few months earlier, which despite being quite a challenge, had turned out rather good.

The first stage, was to consider how best to display the flag and to go back to my client with suggestions for mouldings. As always, I spent quite a lot of time considering the most appropriate style of frame, especially as the moulding had to have a deep rebate to accommodate the thickness of the material and the ribbons that decorated it. As I like to work with bare faced wood, I presented a few options which had been hand painted and at our next meeting, it was one of these hand-painted mouldings that she went for.

Due to the size of the artwork, I decided to use UV acrylic rather than normal float glass in order to minimise the weight and to provide protection from sunlight and hence fading.

Once the cost had been calculated (and agreed), I was all ready to go. So first, how to attach the flag?

After consulting the experts – flicking through the pages of ‘Framing and presenting textile art’ (Annabelle Ruston ISBN 978-0-7136-8808-5) and advice from the ever helpful Mal Reynolds of Harlequin Framing, I decided on a combination of sewing and archival PVA. The flag was threaded onto a baton which I painted to match the frame and the baton was then glued onto conservation mountboard which had already been backed up with foam board to provide some stability. Once I was happy with how things were looking, I set about making the frame and painting it. I also opted for ivory covered glass spacers in order to ensure space between the acrylic and the flag.

Detail showing baton attachment and deep rebate frame

All seemed to be going well, but before assembly, I removed the flag from the baton in order to give it a final iron. It was then, that I realised it was far from square, as the material had been cut on the bias and when sewn, had puckered up in several places. There was no way it was going to lay flat or to look square. And ironing it, had just highlighted the problem.

The only thing for it was to go all round the flag, carefully pinning and tucking then tacking all the excess material until it was as flat and even as possible. Then came the final, tricky bit of assembly. Which is when the real problems began! Without going into all the details, this took quite some time as I have come to realise that very large framing projects are not easy for someone that is not very tall and doesn’t have a terribly large workspace.

Anyway, perseverance (well I am in Leith afterall) won the day and my client was very pleased with the end result. As was I. It now graces the wall of their other house down in the Scottish Borders.

A couple of months ago, I was given the opportunity to work with the Edinburgh Fringe. The recommendation came from my old workplace, Whitespace, who were working on the 2010 design campaign which employed the talents of  illustrator, Johanna Basford.

Johanna had been commissioned to produce a series of beautiful black and white drawings which were to be reproduced on various items of marketing materials and the decision was made to frame a series of these drawings, prints of which would be available for sale in the Fringe shop.

This year, one of the sponsors of the Edinburgh Fringe is The Scottish Cafe & Restaurant run by the dynamic duo that is Victor and Carina Contini. They purchased some of the said prints which they asked me to frame and these currently hang in the reception at Centotre and Zanzero, their other two hugely successful eateries. Pop by for a coffee, a cocktail or a bite to eat and check them out.

The limited edition prints (100 only of each design) are for sale (unframed) for £50 at the Fringe shop on the High Street but should anyone wish them framed, then I’d be happy to help.

For the prints that I have already framed and to complement the black and white images, I chose to use a simple solid ash, bare faced moulding with a gently rounded profile. I hand finished this using black wood stain then shellac sealer.

I am delighted to have worked with both the Fringe and the Contini’s on this project and I wish them a happy and successful festival.

I hope you enjoy it too.