Mounting A Watercolor

Spring Trees.  Watercolor Mounted On Board.
10 x 8 inches.
(Below the painting is an antique toilet paper roll from
my husband's grandfather, who was a plumber!)

If you're a watercolor painter, you're probably aware of how frustrating (and expensive) framing can be.  To do it right, requires good mat board, glass and frames.  It's easy to damage the frames, glass breaks, and on, and on.  And, matting and framing, versus hanging unframed, just offers a different look.  It depends what your end goal might be.....

I've been admiring how some people have mounted their watercolors by sealing the painting and then mounting them on canvas or cradled panels.  One is David Castle, and you can read about his process HERE.   Or, another example by Sandrine Pelissier, HERE.  

I've been consolidating the materials for a while, and it just took me a bit to actually try it.  

I have:

gel medium (heavy)

the panels

a painting that I'm willing to sacrifice

and some acrylic to paint the edges

krylon to seal the painting

So, here's what I did--I sprayed the painting with krylon (in the garage).  There are many kinds of krylon, and frankly, I'm not sure I used the right stuff.  If not, no worries, it's a sacrificial painting.  

I spread mat gel on the board (not enough, and not careful enough in the corners and on the edges; lesson learned).  

My painting was a smidge bigger than the board and it's on 300 lb paper.  So, I approximately set it on the board, squashed some books on it, and left it to dry (shown below).

I used an exacto knife to trim the painting to the board.

And then painted the edges of the board with a mix of phthalo blue and burnt sienna acrylic paint (shown below).

I like the way it looks, but....here are some things I'd do differently:

1.  Be more careful about my painting size and design.  The whites along the edges are native to my painting, not cutting mistakes, but I hadn't the painting for this....

2. I could use some more brushes for this--I only own a couple of acrylic brushes at this point, and I'm leery about sacrificing them to the gel medium and other activities....

3.  I only own about 5 colors of acrylic paint, and the tubes are ancient!  I'm glad it worked at all.....

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way the final result looks--I'm going to try it again!

Making sure the painting dries flat.....

Painting the edges of the board with acrylic....