I
get lots of ideas from seeing other framers' work, I think it is a part of the
creative process to see what others are doing and either replicate or
adapt them in your own way, or within reason even make an exact copy
and steal the design.
I
saw a frame like this one above a while ago, and really liked the look of it. I
have tried to make one exactly the same. The deep outer frame has a
dark green paint base (on gesso) and it has been oil gilded in
aluminium leaf. Then it is really heavily distressed, and has been given some
paint flecking, toned with shellac, pigments, and is finished with wax.
The
wide bevel slip has a usual gesso base, it is then painted off-white
and covered in very fine paint speckles and flecks, and is finished with
stippled on wax.
Is
it OK to copy other framers' frames?
I recently saw a picture framing website which had copied large amounts of information from my website. This was not just similar content but exactly the same, word for word plagiarism. I am sure lots of websites are built by looking at other sites and getting ideas, then drawing on these ideas to develop your own site. I know I looked round other websites when I designed mine, but I wrote all of the content myself and it took me absolutely ages.
Charles
Caleb Colton said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”
This
is actually what I thought, someone believed my content was so good, they would not even try to hide the fact that they had simply taken
the hard work of someone else, and were passing it off as their own.
I
like helping framers when I can, and say honestly, had I been contacted by
a framer who wanted to use my content on their own site, I would have been happy to help. If they wanted to simply copy the text then
I think it is reasonable to get a credit for this, it is after all my
property. Alternatively they could have used the text as a base and
then re-written it in their own style, without having to credit me as
the original author.
Anyway
life is too short to spend more time thinking about this, the person
who took my work has now re-written it in their own style, and I wish
them all the best.
