This is the last item in my recent spate of framing and hanging—a set of three sketches by  sickeleye. Like the others, it presented several challenges, albeit none very serious and some stemming from a decision to mat and frame the sketches together.

The first of these difficulties was that Tom’s legs are unfinished and his feet were erased, not quite completely, plainly out of dissatisfaction with the results—but the girls’ legs and feet are all there. Since the figures were drawn at the same size rather than to the same scale, this raised the awkward prospect of trying to cut three mat openings of different heights and of the figures being cropped differently. In the end I elected simply to accept the compromise of the girls’ feet being hidden in exchange for similar compositions and opening heights.

Since it is effectively impossible to cut multiple mat openings on a Logan® mat cutter, this one had to be cut on a professional rig, and I’m grateful to the folks who did it as a favor. After I had the mat back, I hinged the sketches to it, one at a time, then assembled the whole block with a white Fome-Cor® backing.

It was only then that I realized another problem. The sketches are on bond paper, which is thin and translucent, and on the reverse of two there are false starts. Against the white backing, these unfinished beginnings show through. When I mentioned this,  baroncoon suggested a solution, one I’d used before but forgotten: I purchased a sheet of black artist’s paper and slid it between the sketches and the backing. Voilà!

After completing the job with a store-bought frame and acrylic replacing the stock glass, I hung it up on a spot left bare when one of baroncoon’s existing originals was sold off. So there you have it!