A Question About Art Prints
To avoid any confusion, I am actually the one with the question. As you may remember Mike and I create my own prints in paper and canvas. We also do this service for other artists. We have been asked by a very large art group to give a talk on the subject.
Now, we often give tours and talks to large groups about every aspect of our business, so you wouldn’t think this would be such a stretch. But because the group isn’t coming to the gallery, we have no props, and can’t demonstrate how the printers work, or utilize any of my usual repertoire of amusements. Not to mention the fact that I am anti-social, hermit recluse type, and Mike . . . well Mike makes me look like a socialite. So we are like “Crap what are we going to talk about?”
So here’s where you come in. Does anyone have any questions about getting fine art prints done? Any question at all.
See the way I figure it, with your help we could hopefully put together some sort of outline about what artists are looking for and what their concerns might be. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Oh and of course posts on the subject are sure to follow. This is the only other post I’ve done on having prints made.
Tags: prints
Hey Mona (just catching up on your posts after a week away!) the question im always asked about prints is ‘I have heard about Giclee Prints, what are they? etc. Maybe you could talk about the difference between the two printing processes. Also about how many years the inks and paper will outlive us : )
In addition to above, I think how you handle the artwork is important. This is something I wonder about — am always reading about the “drum scanner” and whether or not media like pastel or oil pastel can be used with it. Maybe this not an issue with you — but then info for the artist your information on the media, size and how you recieve/handle the art would be helpful.
I think some information on the economics of printing — i.e. what size editions are preferred and what is the economics of just a few versus many prints.
What should an artist consider in choosing a printing company? What should an artist consider in choosing paper/canvas for printing? What size(s) of prints whould an artist consider and why? What edition size and why?
I think showing a few of your products would be sufficient visual input.
Angela
Thanks so much to both of you. This is an excellent start! If you think of anything else, at any time just add it on.
Glad to see you back Melanie.
I’d love to help but being full of cold seems to have affected the two brain cells that I have! Let me see… I was asking about prints not too long ago. I don’t really know how much your audience already knows though, so lets presume they are as clueless as I was/am…
What I wanted to know was what the difference was between usual printing and giclee. As I understand it, giclee is a different kind of ink that is colour fast for about 75 years?
Also, what resolution/dpi items need to be scanned at for a really clear print. Forgive me, as I said I am clueless, but do different kinds of printers print out at a different resolution as well? What sort of resolution should one be aiming for?
What about paper? What are the benefits of using one paper over another?
One thing I discovered recently was that I couldn’t get a piece scanned effectively because the canvas was on a frame. Apparently the pieces were fed through a scanner (like a mangle!) rather than laid on a flat bed scanner. It would have been helpful to know that before hand.
Another problem was that the scanner (they tried it on the flat bed scanner in sections) didn’t seem to pick up the colours properly. What can be done about that? Is that because the scanner was inadequate for the task? Or can this happen sometimes? Do you have to touch up scans in photoshop?
Following on from what Angela said, how do you know if a printing company will treat your art work with care? The place I went to laid one of my pieces down on top of other items in such a way that it could have stretched the canvas if I wasn’t there to move it! I don’t think it was because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t have a clue, even though they do prints for other local artists. (it was an artist who recommended them actually)
I think that’s about all I can think of at the moment, unless you wanted to go into how much you should charge for a print and how limited editions could effect pricing?
Hope that helps!
Sorry, that turned out longer than expected! The link in your post doesn’t work by the way.
It does help, thank you Undaunted. I’ve added your questions to my list to answer and will hopefully begin posting on the subject next week.
I’ve gotten a little lazy checking to see if my links work, a hazard from posting too late in the evening. I shall get it corrected when I’m done typing this.