Mounts - not the horsey kind!

Thank you Lesley, glad to be of some help. Michael is actually saying that cream or white mounts are the ones to use, avoid coloured ones. It was fashionable many years ago to pick out a colour in your watercolour painting and match it with a coloured mount, not a good idea now so avoid that. I only ever use 'Antique White', lovely mellow white which enhances your work. I can also remember artist's continuing their work into the mount itself, often in pencil, you still see this dreadful practice on some prints being sold.

Sorry - wasn't I clear? Only use white and cream. Antique white is also my preferred option and again, in agreement with Alan, cut with 2.75 inches minimum - most off-the-shelf mounts are far too narrow. These days I have mine cut in batches - they are more professional than my hand-cut ones done in the studio and are quite reasonable from a local framer. As for double mounts I am not averse to these but no longer use them. It was also fashionable a while back to have double mounts with the outer mounts in white/cream and with the inner mount in a colour picked out from the painting - again this is now a tad dated.