The Purple Picture

We've had one of those serendipity moments! A happy accident that in our case gave us a piece of interesting art as well as solving a problem and saving us money.

Last month in one of the charity shops we visit regularly, we spotted a watercolour of Hartlepool Harbour entrance: Vince learnt to sail there so was keen on buying it. But its mahogany style frame was a bit too smart for the soft, blue-grey colours of the picture and it had no mount to show it off to best effect. Then Vince realised that the frame was ideal for a print we had bought some months earlier.

What we call "the purple picture" is a small African landscape print of unusual proportions and in shades of purple. When we bought it it was in a very large chunky brown wood frame that was way out of scale for the picture and it had a ubiquitous cream mount that was entirely the wrong colour. Temporarily, we put it into a cheap A4 certificate frame and planned to get a new frame made for it later.

On checking the frame from the Hartlepool picture we found that it was perfectly proportioned for the purple picture, matching the style well too. All it needed was an appropriate mount. So off went Vince to our local framer, and selected a purple pearlescent mount to match the picture. It now hangs on the living room wall and looks like it was bought from a gallery.

So, that one picture has solved the problem of framing the purple picture and saved us having to buy a custom-made frame that would have cost us many times more. All we need now is a decent frame for the Hartlepool Harbour picture.


Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince


ps. The charity shop where we got the Hartlepool picture now sells only books, with no bric-a-brac or interesting stuff - shame! One less source of great value art.