Passepartout - Tumblr Posts
How To Wow Too: Passepartout
So you've spent the last half of eternity on that beautiful drawing/painting of yours, or did you just raided your very own bank account to lay hands on a piece of your favorite artists, and, all alone on its own hanging on the wall, it simply doesn't want to stand out? A wallflower indeed.
But maybe all it lacks is the proper device to attract all eyes toward its beauty - not just a frame, but a passepartout. Which, in simple terms, is broad frame of usually white cardboard - a kind of visual palate cleaner - around the artwork to guide the audience's glance toward its center.
What do you need? Of course The Artwork, a big enough picture frame and some cardboard - to up our game, something bolder than just white; the dark blue is a nice complementary contrast to the butterfly's orange dominating the drawing [by @theweeowlart].
Tools you need: a sharp knife (preferably an artist's scalpel or a cutter knife), some smooth, clean, hard cutting surface (some leftover shelf board here), a cutting edge, measuring tool & window cleaner.
Measure & Mark
Usually, you let the passepartout overlap the artwork by some extent. So for the next step, you need three measures that you will mark on the cardboard's backside - we really don't want any pencil marks on the front, even erasing will leave some telltale signs:
size of the frame. If it doesn't tell you right away, measure the back-plate
size of the artwork, mark the corners for easy fitting later on
size of the cutout, size of artwork minus the margin you like
Mark the frame size first, then add center lines which will be the reference for the inner lines, corner markings and cutout lines. You should end up with something like this:
This is an example for a drawing shifted to the upper right section of the canvas. In order to center it in the cutout, shift the corner markings to the bottom and the right (since we mark on the backside).
Cut & Stick
See the dashes I used for the corner markings? They are a reminder which lines to cut, only the solid ones! Press both the cutting edge and the knife tightly when cutting, more than one slice or a slipping cut-guide can ruin all the work. Try to cut only from corner to corner, a pointed knife helps a lot.
Almost done! Erase any leftover marks, before placing the drawing on your cut frame within the corner markings and fix it with painter's tape - there are also types that won't hurt the artwork's paper if removed later on.
Final Polish
[Optional] You like it fully-fledged classy? Add some ink lines equidistant to the cutout (left). Or are you of the playful kind? Well, turn that cardboard frame into your own canvas (right).
Clean the glass pane from both sides - window cleaner/microfiber cloth help to get rid of any fingerprints and production residues - then assemble the frame.
Picture-perfect result, isn't it?
