How to Choose Mat Colors for your Pictures - Part 4

3. Mat Border Sizes
A last but key element in choosing mats is to determine how wide the mat borders should be around your image. Once again the rule of matting to draw your eye to the focus of the picture can be your guide. Too wide and all you see is mat. Too narrow and the mat will seem cheap or unnecessary.

Some professionals have a comfort level with a simple percentage – i.e. 15 - 20% of the smallest dimension of the image should be the mat border. Using this rule an image that is 24” x 30” would have a minimum mat border of 3.6” and a maximum of 4.8” – probably rounded off to 5”. This would provide enough weight around the image without taking away from the picture.
Others are less exacting and often through experience have found certain border sizes to work well with certain image sizes. For example – they always like a 2.5” border on images that are between 8” x 10” and 9’ x 12” and a 3.5” border on images that are larger than 9” x 12” - say up to around 16” x 20”.

There is no set rule here. In fact some photographers with strikingly dramatic photos often will mat their gallery images with huge borders that serve to isolate the image from the entire wall and region around it and allow the viewer to focus more clearly.
Experiment with what works best for you – but keep in mind that your goal is to get the viewer to look at the image – not the mat.






Artwork by Lynn Blaikie - Island Art Publishers - Photograph Unknown

Want to practice matting for free? Try the MatoMatic framing tool at www.matshop.com. You can upload your own picture or choose from one of their gallery images and try different mats and mat combinations, frames and even background wall colors while you design your own projects.

How to Choose Mat Colors for your Pictures - Part 3

2. Double Mat Choices
With double mats – you have many more options available to you for your second or inner mat. While the outside mat should adhere to the rules for single mat choices – because you are adding an accent color beneath – you can often allow the outer mat to be a bit stronger since the eye will naturally be drawn to the inner accent color.

The most important thing of course is that the inner accent color should now help continue your eye’s travel on to the focal point of the picture. That is why choosing the inner mat color is most critical with double mats.

One rule of thumb is to step back from the picture and decide on color order. For example: What is the dominant color, what is second, third and fourth. Often a dominant color is not obvious until you notice the overall affect. Ideally you do NOT want to use this dominant color as your accent. Instead now look at the secondary or tertiary colors and see how they relate to the focus of the image. Choose one of those colors as your accent or second mat color. That way your eye will be drawn from the outer mat to the accent to the focal point of the picture.

Artwork by Stefanie Clark -"Wolves" - Courtesy of Island Art Publishers

Want to practice matting for free? Try the MatoMatic framing tool at www.matshop.com. You can upload your own picture or choose from one of their gallery images and try different mats and mat combinations, frames and even background wall colors while you design your own projects.

How to Choose Mat Colors for your Pictures - Part 2

1. Single Mat Choices When choosing a single mat to go around your images you need to realize that people looking at the picture will have their eyes drawn to the most visually stimulating area – usually the area of the picture with the greatest color, contrast or dominant focal point. If you choose a mat that overshadows this area, then you will hurt the presentation of the picture – no matter how well the mat color matches your wall or furnishings. Therefore – if choosing a single mat – use a color that compliments the image, does not fight with the colors in the image – or overshadow them, and allows you to step back from the picture and still see your eye drawn in to the focal point. Great choices for single mats are often simple clean colors such as whites, creams, very light greens, blues and grays.

"Time Passages" image by Calen Darnell - Terra Art Photos

Want to practice matting for free? Try the MatoMatic framing tool at www.matshop.com. You can upload your own picture or choose from one of their gallery images and try different mats and mat combinations, frames and even background wall colors while you design your own projects.

How to Choose Mat Colors for your Pictures - Part 1

There are several simple techniques that professionals in the art and framing industry use to be able to shorten the time it takes to choose the exact right mat color or mat combination for matting and framing pictures. In this series I will present a couple of rules and then apply those rules in three further posts;

1. Single Mats

2. Double Mats

3. Mat Border Sizes

One very important rule to remember is – Mat (and frame) your picture to suit the picture – not the wall, the furnishings or décor. That is not to say that taking those things into consideration is not important – particularly if you are working on complimenting a room or design – but that the first consideration is that your choice will enhance the image. This of course also allows you to easily move a picture from one room or design environment to another – knowing that your framing will always enhance the image.

A second but key rule is that all framing and matting should have one goal – to draw the viewer’s eye to the focus of the image being presented. To that end – choices of mats and frames are made that build on this principle.

Try the MatoMatic framing tool at www.matshop.com. You can upload your own picture or choose from one of their gallery images and try different mats and mat combinations, frames and even background wall colors while you design your own projects.

Art in the Financial Meltdown

People are talking about the "Great Depression" as they listen to the dire news of the global credit meltdown. What role does art play in this time in history.
Looking back to the 30s will bring to mind some notable North American Artists such as Curry, O'Keefe and Hopper as well as Grant Woods - noted for the iconic "American Gothic".
The arts tends to thrive in times of uncertainty - although the financial rewards may not be immediately evident. Does this coincide with our desire to try to get a hold on something real, to touch the basics such as relationships and the meaning of life?
It will be interesting to see what this next decade brings in terms of art as it reflects and manifests the world and condition around us.

Matting Tips - Part 5 - Triple Mat

5. TRIPLE MAT

I guess this is an obvious – but one of the nicest ways to do this is to vary the “lin¬er” sizes of your inner mats.  Illustrated here we have started with a light blue mat as the very inside mat and allowed ¼” of it to show as a “liner”.  Then we added a dark blue liner on top of that with only about 1/8” showing.  Lastly the outer mat was matched to the light blue color of the very inner mat creating a great focus for the image – drawing your eye directly in to those colors in the piece.

Artwork courtesy of Patricia Arndt and inspired from Karin Jurick's "Different Strokes" website.
Mat created using the MatoMatic tool - courtesy of www.matshop.com.
You can do it too and best of all its FREE!

Matting Tips - Part 4 - Floating

4. SINGLE MAT FLOAT

Another technique is to float your image instead of attaching it to the back of the outer mat. To do this – choose a mat that will make a good background – or similar to choosing a double mat – a good “liner” color. Then choose your outer mat and cut the opening to be ½” LARGER than the image you are matting. This will create a ¼” “liner” around the image. Ensure both mats have the same outer dimension and glue them together. You will then have a “window” in the middle where you mount your artwork – using a rice paste or acid-free double sided tape. Centre the image and it will float on your background.

You can modify this to add a bottom weight to your “liner” as an added touch

Experiment and you will find lots of ways to modify this to add a great look.

Artwork courtesy of Patricia Arndt and inspired from Karin Jurick's "Different Strokes" website.
Mat created using the MatoMatic tool - courtesy of www.matshop.com.
You can do it too and best of all its FREE!