Claude, a new guy at the painting club, brought along a painting he’d done on a toile, or a canvas stretched onto a wooden frame. Most of us work on toiles, myself included. Claude’s very good, but what made his painting look so professional was the framing, a simple wooden frame around the edges. He’d done it himself and assured us that it’s really easy to do; he told us the dimensions of the wood he’d used, described how he’d done it and promised to demonstrate the following week. I don’t know why, but we haven’t seen him since; maybe we scared him off!

Nick always said framing was easy; you just had to get the angles right for the mitred corners. I thought I’d have a go.

I bought some wood, Kieran gave me a saw, a jig for cutting the corners, clamps and some nails and in my tool box I found a little hammer and a strapping device to hold it all together once it was glued up.

I cut some lengths of wood, (this turned out to be a remarkably strenuous activity!) and started to glue and nail them together to give the required profile, but for all my hammering, nothing seemed to happen, except when I missed the nail completely and hit my thumb instead! Another dig through my tool box unearthed a bigger hammer, this one weighing in at over a kilo; surely that would do the trick, though I definitely didn’t want my thumb in the way this time. I held the nails in place with pliers; much better, but the nails were a fraction too long. I tried putting them in at an angle, but just ended up with a pile of bent nails; that skill is way beyond me. Back to the DIY shop for shorter nails; now I was getting somewhere.

Once the lengths were glued together, I started to cut the mitres. The first end is easy, but getting them to precisely the right length proved very difficult and I had to buy more wood. It didn’t help that once I cut the angle at 90° to where it should have been!

I persevered and eventually an older painting was framed and acceptable if you don’t look too closely.

Next were two for the exhibition that starts tomorrow. One I painted red once I’d cut all the pieces, the other black. I did a lot of sanding to make the corners fit together as neatly as I could, then touched up the paint where necessary.

They’re far from perfect, but I can only improve from here and I do like the effect the framing gives, they look more complete somehow.

I’ll be pleased to put away the tools and have my kitchen work surface back, but I think I’ll frame future paintings.