Monday, March 4, 2013

I am a believer!

Being an artist you often want to be able to produce more than you physically can, not just inspirationally and practically, but for financial reasons. Original art gets expensive, especially when a customer buys through a gallery and thanks to the world's economy right now, us artists are finding it difficult to sell original pieces. The odd piece gets sold but, its not frequent enough to pay the bills - especially as most artists will want to invest in more canvas, more paint and framing for the next original work.Decent quality canvas and paint doesn't come cheap - especially when you paint impasto like me....so you see, it can get a little financially sticky here in an artists world.

Thats where print reproductions come in handy. It means we can reproduce our work for sale in a more affordable bracket whilst the customer is still able to enjoy the artist's work. Up until the late 1980's though, artist's work had to be scanned and inkjet printed. A lot of the time, detail would be lost and the colours could not be properly matched.

So then, it is with glee and joy the artist welcomes Giclée printing!! Giclée, from the french verb gicler, means to squirt, or spray, describes the printing action for this process. It is quite different to inkjet printing and is normally only used for fine art and very detailed printing. The Giclée printing machine can print such fine detail, it makes it ideal for artists wanting to reproduce their work. The printing machine however is only as good as the guy running it and obviously needs decent input to get decent output.

I am not going to pretend I know anything about the software available that makes this process so magical and awe inspiringly accurate but I can summarise the process to you, as I was recently introduced to it myself by a lovely guy called Craig at I-Pixel design. I headed over to Abergavenny (a bit of a haul but I tell you, so so worth it to get the quality of work these people produce!) with my work for 'capture'. I was under the impression that the painting was scanned by a very good scanner, however Craig corrected me and told me that each 'capture' is made up of several (often into the tens) of high resolution photographs, which are then 'jigsawed' together again by the fancy software. 

The rest is then down to Craig who then uses his skills to adjust the 'jigsaw' so it is accurate and match the colours to as close to the original as possible. I have to say, he did a fab job as I couldn't tell the difference. Once he thinks he has it down, a proof is printed and everyone makes sure they are happy - if not, more adjustments can be made before the final prints are run. 

The Giclée printer is a whizz, printing 4 prints for me in the time it takes to drink a lovely cup of tea. The bonus is, I can order more prints whenever I like, so I don't have to tie up money in 30 prints that just sit in my studio, cluttering up the place until they sell. Brilliant! 

Whilst this is not the first time I have ordered prints, this is the first time I have had the quality of workmanship I have been after. I am so proud of these prints, I am keeping one for myself this time! Its still not a cheap process, however it opens up art to more people which is always a good thing. It is as much as an investment for me in someone else's skill and talent as it is for my customers, so in Giclée printing, I AM A BELIEVER! 

Big thanks to Craig at i-pixel design - www.ipixel-design.co.uk