The matted mushroom watercolor trio.

Watercolor: Framed Mushrooms for Mother’s Day

My mom has always loved mushrooms, even when she was a kid. Growing up there were quite a few mushroom themed items in our home. Last year for Mother’s Day I used my mom’s love of cute fungi as inspiration for her gift. I used watercolor paint to create a mushroom painting trio for her home office. This gift gave me the chance to use a push mat board cutter, which is pretty exciting when you want the ability to create your own mat board frames for cheaper than a craft store would charge you. Or maybe I’m the only person who gets excited about things like that? The steps below mainly outline how I created the mat board frames for the paintings.

Materials I used:

Process:

  1. Sketch mushrooms on watercolor paper using your pencil.
  2. Use the brush pens and watercolor paint to give your little mushrooms some pizzazz. Go realistic or more stylized like mine.
  3. Once you are finished painting and the watercolor is completely dry, cut out the paintings with scissors, but be sure to leave a half inch border that will allow you to tape the painting to the mat board.
  4. After you have PRACTICED with the mat cutter and are comfortable with it, you are ready to measure out lightly in pencil the area of mat board to be cut away. Be sure to use your ruler for straight lines
  5. Line your ruler up with the pencil lines and use that as a guide while running your mat cutter along the pencil line.
  6. Once you have repeated step 5 to all 4 sides the center area of mat board can be removed and you have your frame!
  7. Erase any pencil lines that remain.
  8. Flip the frame over to the back.
  9. Place your watercolor painting face down on the mat board frame.
  10. Center the painting inside the frame.
  11. Carefully tape down the painting at each corner with small pieces of tape.
  12. Flip the mat board with painting over to double check your painting is still centered. If not, adjust the tiny pieces of tape until the painting is centered.
  13. Once centered, secure the painting with more tape. Tape along each of the 4 sides.
  14. Take the extra mat board area that you removed in step 6 and tape it to the back of your painting. You will basically be creating a mat board painting sandwhich for more stability.
  15. You are all finished and ready to give your painting as a gift or hang it in your home!
  • Materials used.
  • Detail of mushroom watercolor.
  • Detail of mushroom watercolor.
  • shadowfax mushroom watercolor cat
  • Sketch guide lines onto the mat board.
  • Line up your mat cutter and ruler along the guide lines you created.
  • Press hard while running your mat cutter along the metal ruler.
  • Close up of the beveled edge.
  • Erase any pencil marks still on your mat board.
  • Use only a small amount of tape when taping the watercolor to the back of the mat board. This will allow you to make adjustments easier.
  • After taping the back flip over everything to the front. Check to see if your watercolor is centered in the frame.
  • Once everything is centered flip to the back and use more tape to secure the painting.
  • Place the center you cut out of the mat frame on the back of the painting.
  • Once that is centered. Tape it down. This will give the painting more support.
  • Matted mushroom watercolor.
  • Matted mushroom watercolor.
  • Matted mushroom watercolor.

Be sure to share pictures of your framed watercolor paintings with me on Instagram – @reminiscentrain

Happy painting!

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