A.J.'s Kitchen Frame

Diane's painting titled A.J.'s Kitchen and frame (of course!) were shipped to the Weatherburn Gallery in Naples Florida this afternoon.  I've used the style of this frame before and in my previous post I showed it to you in the raw with the carving complete.  Here's what happens to it after the carving was completed.  It's given two coats of the Rolco burnisher/sealer, you can see the can in the background.  For this one I used a quick size to coat the outer edge of the frame where the carving is.  Composition gold was used for this particular frame, I can't see using the 22kt.  when it's just going to be painted over anyway.  I forgot to mention that before you gild, you should take some 4/0 steel wool and burnish the frame.   I only use Liberon brand for this as it is completely oil free.  The next step is to spray the frame black.  I prefer Krylon brand, they make a semi-flat finish that looks good and I've never had any problems with it.  I made a turntable for spraying and it's worked well.

Here's a close up of what the frame looks like when it's finished.  I used an 8mm gouge to cut the berries.  The way I remove some of the finish and replicate age and wear is to use a very small amount of BriWax on a cotton ball.  You need to be careful with this step because it's easy to go too far.   BriWax has lots of solvent in it and will pretty much stick to the paint so use some caution here, maybe shoot a scrap piece of wood with the burnisher on it and gild a portion so you can practice.  I prefer to use Liberon Black Bison wax on the rest of the frame for a slight sheen to the flat black.  If you notice the way the wax has taken off the finish -- you can even see a hint of the Venetian Red burnish underneath which adds to the authenticity of the frame.  I'm afraid that because this was needed ASAP all of the brush marks weren't sanded out of the burnisher/sealer coat.  Ah yes, Barbara Carter keeps telling me I need to get a spray gun.  In any case, here is what the finished frame and picture that Diane painted looks like: