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Solid Wood Frame System

I was inspired to design this frame system after a studio visit with the artist, Arthur Cohen.  Looking around his studio on the Upper East Side I noticed a few wonderful small paintings, some of his wife Elizabeth at the piano and one or two of the harbor in Provincetown Massachusetts.  Immediately I thought, wow I really like these paintings but boy are they going to be difficult to frame, so I asked him if I made panels designed to fit into a frame would he be willing to paint on them. He reluctantly agreed but soon became the gallery’s most prolific small works artist.  He enjoyed painting on them- at one point he called the gallery asking to send more as he was leaving for the summer and had run out.  He painted on the panels up until his death in the spring of 2012. 

The frame system is priced at $49 the frame is solid mahogany and come with one panel that floats in the frame with a perfect revel it is wired and ready to hang.

see frame system and artwork at

Laurel Tracey Online

Sandy Hook Overlook. 1 / 6 / 13

A quick small painting.. 4 x 6 oil on panel

small paintings

The hay field in Vermont

Made this little painting of the hay field this morning from a photo I took with my phone

oil on 3/4" birch plywood

Building a Ping Pong table

I used two sheets of 1/2 Baltic birch plywood to build this Ping-pong table. Baltic birch plywood is a good choice because it is sold in 5 x 5 sheets.

Hang a grid painting with the French cleat system

see video

Make an Encaustic grid painting

Click the link to see how I made this encaustic grid painting with  the new Encaustic Boards by Ampersand 

see video

Make a smooth surface with Encaustic paint

see video

I’m in the middle of making a grid painting. The painting will be made up of 25 encaustic color blocks. This painting is designed to hang on what is known as a French cleat system, which ensures that the painting will hang level. Because each painting is hung individually, it is also possible to change the arrangement of the panels in the painting, which would in turn change the painting as a whole.

I was recently listening to a Charlie Rose interview with the painter Damian Herst. They were discussing Herst’s most recent work, “The Polka-Dots.” As you may know, Mr. Herst does not paint his own pictures, and the only exceptions he gives to his assistants that do the painting is to not have two of the same color next to each other, and have the colors be chosen at random. Herst merely acknowledged one of his assistants when they pointed out that it would be more random to actually have two dots of the same color next to each other.  That comment, got me thinking, and I designed this painting, to give the viewer control of the of the color placement, working within guidelines  set  by me.