picture frame training
My Picture Frame Training School has received full accreditation from the Fine Art Trade Guild and my aim is to help new and existing framers to achieve greater potential within their businesses.
I offer a full range of professional picture framing training courses from complete beginners to framers wishing to hone their skills. Each course content is totally flexible both in duration and content.
Courses can be fully tailor made to cover a specific topic or area of framing, such as advanced mount cutting or the framing of Sports Shirts. After each course, students will leave with at least one item they have framed, full course notes and a comprehensive hand out folder full of useful information.
Download a copy of my Prospectus. If you cannot see what you would like to learn in the Prospectus, call me on 07889 126050 to see if a bespoke course can be organised.
Picture framing is a very creative and rewarding business. It can be something you gradually work into, starting off part-time alongside your current employment. Building up your skills, knowledge and equipment until you are ready to make a full-time commitment to it, or you can move straight into it at the start, learning on your feet whilst building your client base.
Some choose to purchase an established framing business, others prefer to start from scratch, shaping it to their own requirements as they go. You may go the high street route buying or leasing premises, perhaps incorporating an art gallery, art materials shop, printers or maybe even a coffee shop. Some choose to have a commercial premises in a trading estate or similar where rent and rates will be less, but footfall will also be lower. Finally, some will choose to work from premises at home, maybe in a garage, or even a room in their house, reducing running costs whilst they build their business.
However you chose to structure your framing business you will need to develop the relevant framing skills customers will expect. These can be gradually picked up through trial and error, books and from advice but by far and away the quickest and most professional way to gain these skills is from a recognised framing course. Learning a new skill at whatever age can be interesting, rewarding and profitable.
The Diversity of Framing
Framing nowadays isn’t just about paper art, although this will likely form the bread and butter of the work you do, items such as open edition prints, posters, photographs, Limited Edition prints, original artwork. You’ll also be asked to frame all forms of textile art like cross-stitch embroideries, tapestries, batiks, sports clothing , oils on canvas, and every kind of object you can think of from WW2 Medals, dolls, masks, sports equipment, puzzles, weapons, tiles, etc.
An important aspect of your job will be to advise your customers on how to preserve and protect their artwork, how to frame work in a “fully reversible“ way, so that the item could be returned back to the client in its original state, undamaged in any way. Items may be financially valuable, or hold great sentimental value, either way, they are important to your client, and you must know how to correctly handle and look after them. This area and level of framing is known as Conservation Framing, this is the fundamental level at which I work and the level at which I teach. This ensures the longevity and protection of any artwork that I handle.
