How to Choose the Best Frame for Your Painting?

The primary purpose of having a frame for your painting is to make eyes focus on the artwork and get the real message the painting is passing. Besides, frames provide a structure of protection for the artwork and strengthen the beauty of it in general. Moreover, picking a perfect frame is as crucial as perfecting the artwork itself. A frame can significantly enhance the look of the painting, on the other hand, an unmatched frame selection can dramatically reduce the overall feeling of the art, and display the poor art taste.

When selecting a frame for an artwork, there are three essential things you should keep in mind:

1. What kinds of frames are there?

2. How to choose a perfect frame for paintings with a different style?

3. How can I see the actual effect of the framed piece before ordering one?

Well, let’s start with the easy one, What kind of frames are there?

We can classify frames into different kinds based on such as material, colors, styles, and others while sorting by the styles is the most acceptable method lately.

There are two types of frames on HandmadePiece Online Store.

Classical frames have three different kinds, ornate frames, distressed frames and gallery frames. Generally. Ornate frames are in a more complicated pattern, and most of them are golden. As for distressed frames, they have an old and aged appearance with vintage-styled colors. Gallery frames, a special kind on HandmadePiece, are finally made into one piece and no gap between each bar. When customers want to capture the exact likeness and fancy feeling as museums do, they will choose this type. Gallery frame usually takes twenty days to produce by the factory and seldom has stock for nonstandard sizes.

Compared to classical frames, modern frames are much plain and thin with a few lines and a sole color, especially floater frames which can be made by using wood, PS or aluminum.

How to choose a best frame for your painting?

If your painting reproduction is a classical portrait, such as Mona Lisa, Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani or any others, a classical frame will be your top choice. What’s more, if you want it to look as fancy as the real one in the museum or auction, a gallery frame will be the best. Hanging this framed art in your house, not only the oil painting itself but also the house will be top notch. Not merely portrait but also some realistic landscape or architecture oil paintings will match well with classical frames.

While taking about modern oil paintings, they go well with modern frames. Taking one of Van Gogh’s painting reproduction as an example, Starry Night Over the Rhone, a simple Modern Frame will attract viewers’ attention to the colors and brushstrokes of the painting. However, if it is a complicated classical frame, it may distract people’s full attention. Among Modern Frames, golden floater frames are trendy, and any style of abstract paintings can match with it, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee’s art reproductions. Nowadays, in more and more private galleries, paintings are just framed with simple floater frames.

Besides, never consider the frames which has the same main color as your painting. There must be a moderate amount of contrast between both. Selecting a frame in a complementary color of the painting is always workable. This removes the stress of finding a perfect hue.

As for some private art galleries, you will notice that most of the paintings have gallery wrap, which means canvas stretched around the side of a wooden structure without any outer frames. In this way, each painting must be fully painted and ready to be hung. If you want an outer frame in the future, you can buy one and put the gallery wrapped painting into it from the back directly. Art galleries choose gallery wrap to match the open and plain gallery environment, and the artworks can be easily moved, for the exhibition places may be changed quite often. Taking the color and style of the place you are going to hang the artwork into consideration will also influence which frame to take.

How to check the final effect of a framed painting before ordering?

HandmadePiece will upload the framed samples from time to time on our website, and it is normal that you will be hesitant before ordering a frame because you need to know how it looks like after framing. You can choose a similar painting online and use the function of Choose a Frame to find out the best and popular one.

Hope you can learn something about frames here. If interested in more frame info, welcome to the framed masterpieces to get some frame ideas.