How Color Theory Can Help You With Your Framing

Color plays a pivotal role in a visual artist’s work. Having an understanding of the basics of color theory can help create a logical structure for color and help to understand how color is formed. There are three main categories in color theory: The color wheel, color harmony and the context of how colors are used. In this blog post, we will be focusing on color context.

Color context is how color behaves. Meaning, how it is represented in relation to other colors (and shapes). Looking at certain different colors can affect the way we perceive other colors. For example, the way you view the brightness of a mid gray (hue and tone) is altered when placed adjacent to other colors.

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Observing the effects that colors have on each other is a starting point in better understanding the relativity of color. One of the ways understanding color can help you is when you are framing your work.

The mat you choose for your work can change the look of your image based on its relationship to the values, saturation and the warmth or coolness of different the hues. Lets look at a couple of examples of how you can use your understanding of color when framing your work.

Nick's Favorite Framing projects from 2017

As we start the new year I wanted to review some of my favorite framing projects from last year. If you see any framing techniques or styles that you would like to replicate with one of your own pieces, stop on down for a one-on-one framing consultation!

Vintage David Bowie Poster

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Hand Painted Kenyan Rug & Pillowcase

 

A Mark Hamill Signed Star Wars Poster

 

Stephen Sheffield's Hand Sewn Collage

 

Andrew Seguin's Cyanotypes for Panopticon Gallery's First Exhibition

 

A Selection from Newport Art Museum's 'be of love and other stories'

Holiday Framing

Everyone has those prized images from their past or beautiful images of their children or grandchildren. You've got to do them justice and get those memories framed. Framed images make great presents for the holiday season or any other time of year. We here at Panopticon have a huge range of custom and ready made frames for your treasured images.

When you come in to the shop, our staff will be there to work with you through all of the steps of framing an image. First we will help you pick out a frame and mat color and shape that suits your image. Then we will discuss mounting and glass options. Our job is to make sure you love whatever display we come up with. We also work within your budget to make your image look the best that it can without breaking the bank.

Custom Wood Frames

We love these custom wood frames from a local wood worker. The details and precision are amazing! Each molding can be made with Ash, Cherry, Maple, and Walnut woods with the option of staining or painting.

Here is Tony King's photograph we framed with the clear lacquered ash & maple splines:

Assembling the matte, glass & frame

Finished framed photograph

Detail of the maple spline

One hanging option: french cleat

Second hanging option: wire with d-rings

Artist Spotlight: Fern Nesson

Fern Nesson is a fine art photographer living in Cambridge, MA. She practiced as a lawyer for twenty years and taught history at the Cambridge School of Weston and, for the past ten years, she was the College Advisor at the Commonwealth School. Fern is currently in her first year of the MFA program at Maine Media College. Her abstract work is rooted in the elegance of light and line and is currently on display in our gallery until May 14, 2016.

"Light Lines 1"

  • You have a background in law, how did you transition into the art world?

FN: I have taken a long journey through many, varied careers – lawyer, American historian, fiction and non-fiction writer, history, math and law teacher, college counselor -- but the spine of photography has run throughout my life. My father gave me my first camera when I was 8 and he taught me to develop my photos in the darkroom not long after. Since then, I have been engaged in looking at the world through a camera.

Until recently, photography was my hobby. I knew several great photographers (my father included) and followed their work with interest. About ten years ago, I interviewed my father and we published a book of his work. I have also collected photographs for many years. I am proud to own photographs by Michael Kenna, Ansel Adams and Bruce Cratsley, among others.

Several years ago, I decided to pursue my own photography more seriously. My initial goal was to learn to take better photos. I began by reviewing my past work and publishing several books of my photographs. Then I took a workshop in photography at the Penland School in North Carolina. Finally, last year, I quit my counseling job to do photography full-time.

It’s taken me a long time to accept the challenge of pursuing life as an artist but I am so thrilled to be doing it! Photography provides, as always, a wonderful way to experience the world and the improvement in the quality of my work as a result of studying and practicing it full-time is immensely rewarding.

"Morning Light 1"

  • You are currently attending the low residency masters program at Maine Media, tell us a little bit about the program. How has your work changed since starting your studies there?

FN: For my first semester, I am completing synergistic studio and academic projects, both entitled “An Exploration of Seeing.” Since November, I have taken over 20,000 (!) photographs, read a dozen of the great books about “seeing ” and written three lengthy papers describing the evolution of my own artistic vision. As an intellectual and artistic experience, a Maine Media education can’t be beat!

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  • Your abstractions of light and shadow show a playful & insightful side to subjects we see everyday. How do you choose what you point your camera at?

FN: Light is the theme in all of my work. I don’t shoot objects for themselves; I shoot their interaction with light: are they illumined from within? Are they transparent? Are they reflective? Are they suffused with light? Do they glow? Are they in shadow? Do they sparkle? My subjects are quite varied but it’s all about the light.

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  • What inspires you as an artist?

FN: I am drawn to elegance. In choosing a subject or a scene, I seek elegance in pattern, line, color and shape. I prefer the intricate, small detail, over the panorama. My photographs are abstract but not in the sense of removing detail; just the opposite. I focus on an element and I abstract it through the use of an unusual perspective or point of view.

"Light Lines 5"

  • Your current exhibition in our gallery space is a selection of images from various portfolios. How do you feel the individual pieces interact with one another as a whole?

FN: The photographs in my show, “The Light Dances,” are selected from three different series, which I shot in 2015-6. Although they are of radically different subjects – trees at night, a Calder stabile, and the curtains in my bedroom – they have certain underlying and essential characteristics in common.

First, they are each about light: light as it illumines and ennobles a dark object, light as it enhances a sculpture by throwing off shadows, light as it sparkles and brightens a cold winter landscape.

Second they are multiples. Varying the point of view on a single object takes advantage of all angles of the object and allows maximum concentration upon its interaction with light. The multiplicity of views points up what is so great about our existence: we all see things differently from each other and it is that very diversity that makes art and life so interesting.

Third, they use the power of black. Light as a subject shows up so beautifully when it is contrasted with black. Color can seem sometimes to be cheating; it can make even a dull picture interesting but black is a challenge. If you use it well, you get drama; if you use it badly, you get nothing.

"Stabile 1 - 4"

Packing Tips: Safe ways to wrap & handle Your Artwork

Here at Panopticon we have seen it all for packing material; Blankets, towels, trash bags or worst of all nothing. Framing is expensive and we have some tips on how to keep your frames and artwork safe!

  1. Cardboard Corner Protectors

You can always DIY them yourself using scrap cardboard, buy them from Amazon in small batches or order bulk from Uline. This will prevent any rubbing / scratching of the frames. Corners are helpful if you have multiple frames that are all the same size. However, this will not protect the whole frame or the glass/PlexiGlas.

  1. Properly Stack them

Make sure to stack your frames vertically and to place them glass to glass and back to back while storing them. This will prevent the hardware from rubbing against your frame. The metal hardware and wire will ding the wood or scratch metal frame very easily. This goes for when they are wrapped or unwrapped.

  1. Bubble Wrap

Keep your towels for the beach! While towels might be helpful at home this is not a good or effective solution for preventing damage, as there is no spring to the towel. Foam wrap or bubble wrap will take the impact and prevent your frame from getting damaged. You can order bubble online, pick it up from Uline or your local office supply store.

  1. Use Two Hands

Always pic up your frame using two hands! If it is a large image and you grab it by the top it can pull and your glazing can pop out of the frame. Ten and two just like driving school.

  1. Have us wrap it for you!

If all of this material is too much to handle we can ease your burden! Wrapping images properly is fun for us. We take care of your beloved artwork and make sure it is safe for handling and transport. If it is local we can deliver it for you or even ship your images. Let us know!

The bling bling frame

We recently framed a piece for a client in a beautiful water gilded frame and wanted to share the intricate process the frame makers go through to create such stunning frames. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67LM4Iovll4

The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold.

Here is the frame we used:

Sum sum summertime- that's a wrap!

Whoa! Summer is always an exuberant time to go down the Cape, have some BBQ and for us down at Panopticon Imaging, make work! Our artists have been busy, so we have been having a great season of working with them on finalizing images, prints and exhibitions! We were so excited to work on so many of these projects we lost track of the time, but don't worry- there were a few outing with the Panopti-crew where we were able to steal some sun and fun. We ushered in the season with quite a bang at the Magenta Foundation's Flash Forward Festival! We have been working with the Festival and it's artists for the last three years, and it is always fantastic and quite a different array of work every time.

This year we helped with the printing and installation of the 7 shipping containers that were on the Rose Kennedy Greenway for all of May! In coordination with the Fence, this outdoor exhibition was so much fun, and such a great experience working with the international artists that made up the roster. Each shipping container held a solo exhibition from artists like Angélica Dass and Gregor Schmatz. 

Angélica Dass's solo exhibition in the shipping container.

Along with the Fence, we had the great pleasure of working with Boston Globe Legend Bill Brett on his Flash Forward solo exhibition.   We take great pride in managing and implementing all production for these kinds of exhibitions- from the proofing with the artists, printing, framing and even delivery to the exhibition venue.  This was the fist of the two large-scale exhibitions we helped produce at the beginning of this summer, the second being a brand new relationship we started with artist Emil Cohen!

The crew with Emil Cohen at the William Scott Gallery

Emil Cohen came to us for assistance in producing his solo exhibition, "Portraits in Provincetown" at the William Scott Gallery that was held in July.  The exhibition would be of 76 portraits he made of the good people of Provincetown, both large and small scale to be displayed.  The portraits are beautiful as well as playful and sometimes mischievous- just as you might expect from P-Town. Working from London now, Emil needed to produce the exhibition remotely, and we were happy to take on the task.  When the exhibition was finally ready for air-time, we took that opportunity to join him in P-Town for a little out-of-office research and development.  We hope if you were there this summer, you were able to see Emil's work, or him photographing for the project!

Our whole summer did not just consist of large-scale exhibitions, though.  We work on any photographic endeavor, and were happy to work on both printing and framing projects for a multitude of new clients.  Artists such as Lazaro Montano stopped by to have one of his great Color Block pieces printed and framed; as did Toni Pepe, who had some of her new work in this summer's Community of Artists exhibition at the Danforth Museum of Art.  It was also great to do some expert framing for the end-of-summer exhibition Landscape as Fetish at Gallery Kayafas, introducing us to the work of Angela Mittiga and Mark Dorf. 

Finished framed work by Lazaro Montano

It has been a delightful season, and we hope that the fall brings even more exciting projects as we get to see what everyone has been working on all summer! And don't worry, we haven't slowed down one bit.  We are currently preparing artist Betsy Schneider for her exhibition at Harvard's Carpenter Center, and looking forward to the great work that will be in the Griffin Museum of Photography's annual Atelier exhibition in September! Stay tuned for more, and have a great rest of August!

Lindsey Beal - Lost Art of Daguerreotypes

Rhode Island based artist, Lindsey Beal brought some of her recently created Daguerreotypes into the office for framing. She made these photographs while at a workshop at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Also, she teaches at Rhode Island College and New Hampshire Institute of Art. Daguerreotype, an alternative process, has become a lost art form due to the labor involved in creating them. The process was first created in 1839, the artist polished a sheet of silver plated copper, treats it with fumes that makes its surface light-sensitive. Then the plate is exposed in a camera.

Ms. Beal reviewing her work with owner, Paul Sneyd.

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 Liz framing Ms. Beal's daguerreotypes