At Oil Painting Express, we offer frames in many different styles: gold and baroque to accent your masterpiece or silver and sleek to add a touch of elegance, wooden and modern, to let the beauty of the piece show. It's up to your aesthetic as to what fits. But when buying a frame, it also helps to consider the style of the painting. How would it have been hung originally? What about in a museum?
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RachelWhite's blog
07
July
2010
So, you've got your masterpiece. You can't help but beam each time you pass it, hanging on the living room wall. But, how do you ensure your painting is something that can be passed down and treasured by your family, generations to come? Here are a few tips for keeping your new work of art beautiful:
Framing
While you may be used to using glass picture frames, oil paintings cannot be stored under glass. The glass can damage the surface of oil painting, which is very delicate. The proper way to hang a painting is either in a frame for looks without glass, which will protect the edges. Or simply hang on the wall frame-less for a contemporary minimal look.
28
June
2010
So I recently ordered a painting from Oil Painting Express and I'm excited to walk you through the process!
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Deciding on a Painting
Deciding on what painting to get is a process in itself. Some famous paintings make great reproductions, while others might look great in museums but flat in reproduction. And the same can be said for photographs. I decided to get a reproduction, and there was a lot to consider.
If you are getting a reproduction made, think about how detailed the painting is and the depth of color used. Figurative paintings will always look great, whether abstract or realistic, Oil Painting Express artists do a great job on compositions. However, paintings where the focus is solely on color can be tricky as famous artists often worked years to obtain a desired shade.
Also remember that you can change the colors, say if you like a certain print but it doesn't suite your living room. Why yes, they can make that Monet in all hot pink and purple!
If you are curious whether or not your chosen reproduction will look good, shoot an e-mail to orders@oilpaintingexpress.com. They turn questions around quickly and are super helpful.
02
June
2010
Johannes Vermeer was a painter in the classic sense. 
I don't mean because he painted “light” in the 17th century or because his paintings are super realist with an attention to the mundane. I mean this because when he died he left his family penniless and was a forgotten artist, erased by time, for decades to come.
He was rediscovered in the 19th century and is now considered one of the masters of the Dutch Golden Age. Vermeer led a pretty middle class existence and in his day was regarded as a moderately successful genre painter.
His wife's family had more money than he and she went on to have 14 children. The couple moved in with Vermeer's mother in law, who owned a spacious house. Vermeer went on to paint day in and out on the front room of the second floor.
19
May
2010
I can't decide if Jackson Pollock is totally overrated or actually a bit underrated.
He is a house-hold name, even kids know who Jackson Pollock is. But the name Jackson Pollock, I think, it is often written off as: Oh yeah the splatter painting. Insert eye roll.
But to see a Pollock painting, to stand in front of one, is to witness a rainbow of a composition. One that strikes through the soul in an instant storm of lightning.
Pollock is famous for not painting on the canvas but by dripping paint on the work. Yet his paintings weren't just random splotches of paint thrown here and there, as seems to be thought in passing conversation. Looking at the compositions they are incredibly complex, balanced and exactly how he got the paint on canvas can still incite wonder.
05
May
2010
René Magritte: Some may call him the master of the absurd, I call him the closest thing to a philosopher the art world has ever seen. 
You may know his works as those deliciously impossible paintings: a train coming through a fireplace or the suit without a man. This is how Magritte did surrealism, in dream-like, poetic imagery that carries impact.
He worked in a field of seeming opposites. But his work was actually were a take on the world and the artist's place in the world. His painting, The Treachery of Images exemplifies this idea. The painting is in an almost early-pop art style of pipe and the text below reads “this is not a pipe.” This seems at first glance to be a contradiction, but it is one that is right. It is a painting of a pipe, not a pipe. This could be seen as a comment on realism in art and how the artist can never truly depict the object they are after.
21
April
2010
Paul Klee is hard to classify. His works are instantly recognizable and belong in a category of their own. 
They are abstract, expressionist, Bauhaus, cubist, surrealist but when trying to describe his work one ends up grasping for something more. His work does not fit into any box of art history but rather it seems to be a natural extension of himself.
When stumbling upon his works in museums, the word childlike is sure to appear on many lips. This quality is quite whimsical, romantic and even a bit humorous. It makes it hard to not instantly love Klee.
In his early years, Klee struggled with art-school. Color was the hurdle. He seemed to lack a natural sense of using color, but he continued with art. Klee was also a gifted musician but felt that he had something to add to abstract art not music. It was this element of avant garde in art that excited him, he did not sense this in music.
It was when Klee met famed artist, Kandinsky that he began to open up to the possibilities with color. This turning point reach it's clarity when he quipped “Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever. That is the significance of this blessed moment. Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
07
April
2010
In the 1960's English painter, David Hockney fell right into Pop-Art. His work that initially took off was not his paintings, but photographs. 
While other artists used fish-eye lenses and similar tricks to take pictures of an entire room (in order to paint it), Hockney disagreed with this practice, as the image that resulted was warped. Trying for a more realistic view, he began taking multiple polaroids of a single space.
He realized that what resulted was a piece of art in itself, a patchwork narrative of the subject, another dimension to photography. He called the pieces the joiners.
In the early 60's while still in art-school Hockney had a rash of luck in meeting Andy Warhol and getting introduced to the entire pop-art crowd. He was able to sell some work and live for a year in America. But it was not New York that Hockney had set his sights on, California would be it.
24
March
2010
Tachisme was France's answer to Abstract Expressionism in the 40's and 50's. 
The word Tachisme was named after the French word for stain or drip and this aesthetic statement is apparent in the paintings—which are dripping with color. The compositions look to have suddenly been splashed across the canvas, very similarly to action painting.
This style of painting also has close roots to lyrical abstraction, and like lyrical abstraction was formed as a response to the calculated, formulaic approach of geometric abstraction.
The result was fluid, spontaneous art derived from the philosophy that art should be just that. While this term is used to describe most all French or even European art during American abstract expressionism, it is strikingly different to abstract expressionism. There is a softness in Tachisme that is not present in the raw abstraction of American art.
Critics have called the art sensual, suave and only concerned with handling the beautiful. Because of this, I think that a reproduction of a Tachisme era piece of art makes a very romantic gift. Whether for a guy or girl, a birthday or a just because Tachisme captures the essence of beauty, of sensual movement and all without being too obvious or cheesy.
24
February
2010
Photograph of Eleonora Aguiari's Art Intervention: wrapping a London statue of Lord Napier in red tape
Today's topic isn't about some corner of art history rich with paintings for you to consider and have created. But rather about destroying those paintings...and that being the art.
Art Intervention is the act of intervening with a piece of existing art, either through destroying it or “adding” to it. This genre is often seen as performance art. I consider it to be a very “punk rock” aspect in the art-world. A nihilist “screw off” that often also looks like a practical joke. There is often a fine line between this “school” of art and vandalism. Consider these situations and decide for yourself.
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