The Artist's Life Just Got Better!

Today has been a long time coming. Joan and I paid a visit to CompUSA where we found the best prices on printers in stock that can handle the demand of printing giclees larger than 8" x 10". This day and age prints are the bread and butter for working two-dimensional artists which I happen to be.

In a nutshell a "giclee" (pronounced GEE-clay) is a fairly new way for artists to reproduce their work. Long story short, in the past artists had to send off their reproductions (usually by scanning) to printers just to receive prints they are unhappy with. The color and design was most likely at the interpretation of the person that actually does the process. That would be like Cezanne asking Bubba to make sure the color looks right once the printing process began. Bubba doesn't really care since he's got a deadline and so he prints the lithographs just like he gets them. Cezanne gets the final result and he's pretty much screwed. The lithographs suck but Cezanne still owes the money for printing 1000 lithographs.

Giclees give the artist more leeway in determining the final product. Essentially the prints are done on an inkjet printer. Photographers actually perfected the printmaking process over the past few years. Those of you that print your own photographs know how much the technology has improved. We painters have caught on to this printmaking method and are using it to produce the best quality prints we possibly can do. I have been limited over the past two years at printing 8" x 10" giclees due to the size of my printer.

I've watched other artists make much more money because they have prints that are much larger. Also the inks are far better at recreating the original painting and require less treatment in making them archival (lasting longer than a few years). Most of my artist friends have told me that my originals sell for less than their prints. That means working my butt off those two or three days between traveling to shows.

Well yours truly had a great Spring schedule. We purchased the Epson R1800 this morning. The prints I've produced are OUTSTANDING!!! I can now see brush strokes and things I haven't seen in paintings over the past few years! We are very excited because many of Ben's paintings haven't translated into the printing format.

I'll keep you informed about Ben's prints. Regardless this has been a great step toward our art endeavors!