Is that an Original? ~ Something for Everyone!
Soon after my work started selling and the prices of my originals went up, we decided that it would be a good idea to produce a number of limited edition lithographs of some of my originals. I was only producing 10 to 12 originals a year and the price was unaffordable for many. By producing edition sizes ranging anywhere from 100-600 prints, we could offer collectors a high quality representation of my work for between $75 and $125. If I am lucky and the editions sell out then the value of the original goes up significantly for the collector of the original and for the lithographs.
The lithographic process is always a challenging one and my wife and I are always fully involved. We pick the highest quality paper product, the best printer that we can find, and we travel to the printers on print day. On print day a huge printing press is used for a lithograph, set up with my image and ready to print a test run for us. It is always a little stressful because the printers are always looking to get the job completed quickly and we knit pick dust spots, analyze color saturation and work hard at creating the best possible representation of my work. Once you give them the OK, the entire edition starts printing and there is no turning back. But it is exciting to see the prints rolling off the presses!
It’s always fun to bring out a new lithograph and to have a reasonably priced product to offer people who want to start collecting my work.
Another slightly higher priced product ($225, $450) that we offer collectors is a paper giclee reproduction print. Giclee (pronounced zhee-clay), which in French means sprayed, is a technology of a steady stream of one million microscopic ink drops per second directed on the fine art paper. Top quality, heavy weighted watercolor paper is used. Each print is printed one at time using this digital process. Highly accurate printers are used and the final product is comparable to an original watercolor. As with all prints the smaller the edition the more collectible, due to supply and demand.
A very popular product now is the canvas giclee. Using the same digital technology as the paper giclee, the image of my painting is transferred onto a stretched canvas. The finished product looks remarkably close to the original oil painting. On my limited edition canvas giclees, I always embellish them with hand painted touches to make every individual canvas giclee one of a kind. Once framed (no glass required) people really have to examine it closely to detect whether it’s an original painting or not! They are considerably more expensive ($600, $800) but it gives the collector an excellent representation of the original painting. Each of my European Landscape giclees comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from the master artisan-printmaker we are working with on these prints.
My website features the two categories of reproductions (Maritime and European Landscape) that are listed under Reproductions on my homepage. Thank you to all of you for your interest in my work.