Q: Love the look of your Masterworks frames! When you frame your paintings yourself, how do you back them? And how do you attach them to the frame?

A: Having a dedicated tool box for framing supplies can speed up the process. 

In the early 90’s a wise young gallery director told me I might want to switch from using finishing nails to attach my paintings to a frame (when I was painting on canvas with stretcher strips) to clips that could be screwed to the frame only.

Nailing through the stretcher strips he said could cause future cracks in the thicker paint strokes from the hammering.

That worked out great, especially once I painted primarily on panels.

I soon discovered that I needed a variety of sizes to accommodate the different depths of the frames’ rabbets.

Here is how I keep the different sizes organized:

Inside I keep a roll of wire and cutters. I’ll talk about that in future ‘Tip R Tools’.

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Do you have a question or tool you’re wondering about? Comment below and it might just end up as our next Painting Tip ‘r Tool!