Specialty Matting

Here is an example of specialty matting. Every year, we donate framing on the annual Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering, which gives us a chance to showcase our creativity in framing. This particular mat design has four different colors as well as a fillet. A fillet is wood piece added to a frame or a mat to give more dimension and enhance detail in the art. The fillet used in this particular piece recalls the color and texture of the frame. I chose a simple frame so that the overall design would not overwhelm the print. Describing the matting from the bottom up: the first mat is a thin line of blue that recalls the blue line printed around the art, which also matches the cowboys shirt. Next, is the gold/bronze, distressed fillet followed by a dark umber mat. The top mat has a western design cut in each corner using our computerized Wizard mat cutter. In each corner, resting on the dark umber mat, is a small inlay piece cut out of mat board to add a touch of detail to the mat design. The moulding used in this design is a brushed bronze color that attracts to the color of the border on the print and also gives contrast to attract to the darker values in the print. I used crescent, cotton rag matboard, which is preservation quality. Also, I used ultraviolet filtering glass to protect the colors in the print from fading.
-Russell