Guild Articles and Editorials

    Paul Andrus

Giclées are the newest method of printing artwork.  In the past conventional printing methods were very costly.  The art work had to be photographed 4 times to separate it into a four color system. If additional colors were needed then that meant more photos to be taken.  Then these photos had to be transferred into metal plates for each color.  Then the printer had to regulate the ink flow and make several runs to get it right.  This was highly expensive in terms of materials and man hours.  So, to make it cost effective to the artist, the artist had to buy prints in no less then 150 prints per piece.  So, if the artist was unlucky enough to not sell all of the prints, then he or she was left with a lot of extras.  Now, imagine doing this for every piece that you created.  Suddenly, this becomes too costly to even think about for new artists just starting out without a gallery to back them.

With the new Giclée method you are not forced to buy more prints tan you can sell.  You can print just one or 5 or 10, or as many as you need.  The thing to remember is that each print is the same price no matter how many you buy, so there isn’t any savings in bulk buying.  This is because the inks are very expensive.  As I mentioned in my first article they have an archival life of 200+ years.  That far outlasts any conventional printing inks.

Once you art is digitally photographed and processed through the various software programs it is set to be printed as many times as you wish.  There are no continual set up fees that a conventional printer would have to do every time you needed to make more runs.  As members of the CAG I do not charge you for the initial set up fee per artwork which is $45.00.  Plus, I offer you a discounted printing fee of .10 cents per square inch as opposed to my normal fee of .15 cents per square inch.  I want to help make this as cost effective for you as possible.

I can make prints for you on, either, canvas, watercolor paper, photo satin paper, or even on clear acrylic film.  However, the film has to be special ordered and will cost more.

My next article will be on preparing your work for Giclée Printing.

Paul Andrus