I wrote this post back when my printer was new and I was involved with a couple groups of artists looking into offering prints of their paintings. I have been waiting to post it until I had a photo of some of my framed prints. I finally took one at last Friday’s Holiday Sale and Party in my studio.
It can be quite helpful to offer your prints in sizes which will fit standard frames. Some artists even note on the packaging that a print will fit a standard 16″ x 20″ frame or whatever. For my work, I have been glad to find the popularity of square frames increasing. It is neat that my square greeting cards which are mounted on art paper and ready to frame now fit a frame that can be bought off the shelf. I display a couple of them framed next to the card bin and people seem to love little bitty works of art. Here are the square frame sizes which I have found to be readily available off the shelf: 3″x3″, 5″x5″, 8″x8″, 12″x12″ and less often 10″x10″ and 16″ x 16″.
My 10″ x 10″ prints are on 13″ x 13″ paper and can be matted and framed in a standard 12″ x 12″ frame. Most of the 8″ x 8″ frames come with a matte for a 5″ x 5″ print and that is the other size of the smaller prints I offer.
Another option is to matte square prints to a rectangular shape and frame them in a standard rectangular frame. The most commonly available rectangular frame are:4″x6″, 5″ x7″, 8″x10″, 8″x12″, 8.5″x11″, 9″x12″, 11″x14″, 11″x17″, 12″x16″, 14″x18″, 16″x20″, 18″x24″, 22″x28″, 24″x30″, 24″x36″, 30″x40″ That’s a lot of choices! I see many of these sizes as photo and portrait frames, offered with glass and backing and many of the larger sizes as open frames. I have found that many artists I know, including myself, run to the big craft store whenever the weekly special includes a half-off frames sale. There have been more a few times that I have arrived mid-week to find cleared out shelves. I now only offer a few of my artist’s proofs framed and limiting their sale to events where I am present.
Of course, it is possible to create your own frames from simple wood trim. I recently received a wonderful little painting by Louisiana artist David Holcombe and it was nicely finished with a black wood frame attached directly to the painting with brads. Simple, but it works well with this piece.
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