Borders for paintings?

This probably dates me, but I remember when (Instamatic camera) colour photographic prints were square and came with narrow white borders on each side. Some time in the 1970s, this changed, and the default borders on snaps disappeared, to my delight. (I suspect this might in part have been due to a change in photographic paper, with the introduction of resin coating.) Even when I took to printing my own black and white prints for a few years in the 1980s, I would make them without borders in order to make full use of the photographic paper.

When I first started out with watercolours, it seemed natural to continue to avoid the use of borders and maximise the painted area, so my first three small efforts were effectively borderless. It did not help that none of the watercolour books in my possession dealt directly with the subject of a border (or margin) around one's painting, but made assumptions that this would happen anyway.

I subsequently realised that a border all around was a good thing, for a number of reasons.

First of all, the border is the favoured means to attach the paper to the work surface -- whether you use gummed tape, clips or even staples. It is an area outside the painting. Watercolour books tend to assume that you will, of course, stretch the paper in the traditional manner, and a natural border will result once you remove the tape. (Unless you cut out the painting to release it from the tape afterwards!)

The border is a good place to touch paintings with bare fingers. If you are blessed with oily skin as I am, then excessive handling will likely cause grubbiness and yellowing over time. A dirty finger print on the painted part of a picture would be bad news indeed, and most likely impossible to remove without damaging the painting.

If you use clips or staples, then the border strips -- if wide enough -- can be used to test your washes before committing them to the painting. This saves using a matching scrap piece of paper for testing, but is not so useful for larger swatches of colour.

And finally, the border comes into its own when the painting is framed for display. The conventional method is to use a glass picture frame with a framing mat -- a thick piece of card with a specially cut aperture (usually rectangular) -- and place this in the frame with the mat on top of the picture. The mat presses against the border, leaving an air gap in the aperture between glass and painting.

How wide you should make the border on your painting is up to you, but for framing purposes a minimum of 1/4 inch (six millimetres) is often mentioned on internet framing sites.

It is a little surprising that the few watercolour books I have encountered, aimed at all levels including beginners, fail to mention what is fairly basic information for anyone starting out. Hopefully this has been food for thought to someone...