An etching project with Adriano Manocchia

Artist Adriano Manocchia and I go way back...so far back that I can't remember just how far back far back is!  We've fished together a lot, mostly on the Batten Kill, but some warm water stuff, too.  Even a trip to Pennsylvania to fish together.  We've worked on his vehicles a bunch, too.  Everything from classic pick up trucks to his Austin Healy.  Good times.

He has had an MGB restoration project to keep him busy during the warm weather and I have never-ending yard work to do then as well.   But as the cooler weather was showing up, we starting talking about what we were going to do to keep out of trouble when the weather started keeping us indoors.

I've been tying some older featherwing flies over the last year or so; I enjoy the look of them, and once I got bronze mallard feathers to bend to my will somewhat consistently, I began to enjoy tying them.  Out of the blue one day a month or so ago, Adriano wondered out loud to me about doing an etching centered around those old featherwings.  He didn't have to suggest that to me twice; I jumped right in and sent him photos of the flies I had done to date.

He came up with a lovely concept that harks back wonderfully to days gone by on the Miramichi.  Love the gent poling - not paddling - the canoe.  Just the way it's done on that river.  He hand-colored the flies, really capturing the look of 'em.

Uh oh - my turn.   While Adriano is selling some of the edition of twenty unframed (go here: http://adriano-art.com/), my job was to create a fly plate (when did shadow boxes full of flies ever become known as fly plates?) - one for him, one for Bridget and me, and one as a donation to the Atlantic Salmon Museum up in Doaktown, NB.  I said I'd like to frame 3 or 4 to sell mostly to raise money to buy more framing and matting materials for more donations to groups associated with the Atlantic salmon.  A guy can only dip into his social security check so often.

I usually fool around with a design for matting on a big piece of white cardboard or paper and then transfer that design to a first set of mats.  In this photo, you can see the white paper under the double mat, which really shows all the changes I end up making to the design.

I like to keep dimensions in easy (for me) multiples.  Double mats, for example, aren't very hard to do at all if you adhere them to each other before cutting the bottom mat.  It's a different story if the mats are going to be separated by spacers; you better have your act together when measuring out and cutting that bottom mat or what is supposed to be a quarter inch difference in mats will end up "not so much."

Once I've got the mat scheme down to what I want it to be, I've actually learned that it saves a lot of time if I do however many sets I'll need all at one time.  If you have a small shop like mine that has to serve as both a woodworking and a framing space, there is a major clean-up that has to be done, say, between making frames and making mats.  Sawdust is the enemy.   So here's a tidy stack, with a couple different mat options, ready for flies and frames:

On to the frames.  Always a fan of "simple" (the frame is about the artwork, not the framing, after all), I decided to use a simple oak frame.   I mill my own frame stock, usually from rough cut lumber.  In this case, I was using oak that had already been through the planer, but that would need to be re-cut and re-joined, and then the rabbet cut out.  There are several ways to cut that rabbet; I choose the safest way (most of the time), and use my table saw.

I do match up the face grains best I can.  I identify what will be the face and outside edge of the material with blue tape so that I know how to orient the piece in the table saw:

There is one little drawback to the way I do it.  Occasionally, the piece I am cutting out sort of has a mind of its own, and rather than sitting nicely on the table saw after being cut. tends to er, wander.  I had a few of those while making these frames.  I put the cardboard in front of the door in deference to buying a new door - and I always stand to one side when I'm doing this kind of work.  I have seen 2X2 lumber eject from the table saw and go through half inch particle board.  That taught me about the "stand to the side" deal.

I have taken to using strap clamps when gluing up frames.  Very easy to use.

A pile o' frames:

So there you have it.  I hope my framing does justice to Adriano's lovely hand-colored etching.   As I mentioned, I have 3 or 4 of these for sale.  Archivally matted and framed, they are $200 delivered to anywhere in the U.S and $220 delivered to Canada.  Anywhere else....let's talk.   Edition size is only 20.

Contact me through a PM on any forum I post this blog on, through FB's message system, or email me at gary.tanner117@gmail.com.   You can specify a light or dark frame.  The dark frame is a redish brown, which picks up the sepia bottom mat very nicely.

Cheers!

Gary