My new drying rack

A nice dry, sunny day for painting sides and backs of gilt frames, shellacking, etc. This improvised drying system looks a bit Rube Goldberg-ish (for those of you old enough to know that name), but it does the job.

More "Lemon Gold" Frames

In the process of doing more silver gilt (lemon gold) frames to have as samples for the upcoming HSEAD (www.hsead.org) spring meeting in Danvers, MA next month. It promises to be a rainy weekend, so should get the leafing done, then hope for some nice dry weather for the finishing.

Apple Blossom Time

We lost my "giant dwarf" apple tree last year during hurricane Irene (http://forthillstudios.blogspot.com/2011/08/storm-aftermath.html), and planted a replacement (they always look so spindly and sad when they first go in). But, possibly due to the extraordinarily mild winter and warm spring, it is full of blossoms. Now just have to wait a year or two and possibly get some apples.

Big compo corners

As the workshop space gets tighter and tighter, large frames sometimes get packed away until the happy day when there is enough space to continue work.

This is a large frame (relatively speaking), that will be used for a contemporary landscape painting. Gessoed and sanded, and now I steamed and applied some wonderful, bold compo ornaments I found in the catalog, and always wanted to try.

Then, back to the storage area while they take some time to cure. Later, they will also get a coat or two of gesso, and then the frame can go to gilding and finishing.