He 1st made the frames with Alder wood, then sanded them smooth. Next was a couple coats of flat black spray paint, then spray painted the top coat (red, green). Once it was all dry, he had fun sanding. Louddog is naturally a bit of a perfectionist, so it was a trick learning to be 'intenionally sloppy' to get the weathered/worn painted look. Not sure if you can get the gist of how these might look in real life, but here's a closer look at a corner... hope it helps.
I love the frame for the American flag photo. The green one is nice too... it's hard to say but maybe it'd look better with a non-green matte to give the frame some more contrast.
VisiBlanco - that is actually a black mat with a light beige inner mat. It's hard to tell in the photos though.
parrothead - if only you lived in Arizona (or we lived in Kentucky)! :-)
mocabela - he did a great job with weathering them... I was so impressed when I saw them. His vision started with a red one specifically for a flag and went from there. We now have many colors of spray paint in the garage.
Thanks for the nice comments. I finished one in white and one in blue today with the same technique. I'm making all the frames for someone's art show coming up in December. Hopefully she can find some pictures that look good in them. The flag is actually the first photo of mine that is in a frame I made. The photo isn't that exciting, but I made the frame with the photo in mind.
Lately I've been experimenting with different finishes on my frames. If anyone has some ideas I'm open to testing some new things.
