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Giclees: Paper & Canvas | Etching | Limited Editions
Claude Monet said, “Technique changes but art remains the same.” Nowhere is this sentiment more evident that when speaking of today’s world, where art and technology meet. Artists throughout their time have used the prevailing technology, whether it was the use of aquatints or a stylus attached to a digitized pad. One such technological breakthrough has been the advent of giclee printing. Since giclee printing made its debut in 1985, many influential artists have incorporated it into their artistic endeavors. David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Jamie Wyeth and Franceso Clemente have made wide use of the medium. Museums have also realized the vast potential of giclees and already have made many giclee editions a permanent part of their collections. Giclee is a general term for an extremely high-resolution digital print that uniquely captures the artist’s intent. Giclees possess unbelievable saturation and depth a color- a beautiful finished product worthy of the respect of artists and art collectors alike. The giclee process begins with an original piece of artwork, such as a painting of a photographic print. The artwork is captured digitally and converted into a high-resolution digital file. When the file has been optimized for color and accuracy to the satisfaction of the publisher, printer and artist, it is output using a state-of-the-art printer in which super-fine nozzles spray microscopic droplets of ink with extreme precision onto a surface. Data from the computer instructs the printer how many droplets of each color to place within each minute dot. The dots are so tiny and precise that, instead of seeing dots, the human eye registers only a subtle tonal gradation. Each nozzle of ink (one for each color) produces about one million droplets per second. The inkjet travels from left to right along a steel rod while a drum wrapped with fine art print paper or canvas is spinning transversely to the ink at about 140 inches per second. It takes an hour or more to print just one high-caliber fine are giclee. Giclees should be treated like any other water-based fine art medium (such as watercolors), including framing behind UV protecting glass (if the image is on paper of is to be hung in a highly-lit area) and not placing the image in an area of direct sunlight or very strong lighting.
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Limited editions allow collectors to own sumptuous, accessible, heirloom-quality works that posses the spirit and personal touch of their favorite artists, an elegant solution for art enthusiasts seeking alternatives to the challenging pursuit of original artworks. In the past edition sizes were determined by the limitations of the printing process. Such as metal engravings or etching plates that were worn down every time it was used, limiting the number of perfect prints possible before the deterioration of the plate. Today, a limited edition is a reproduction or an original impression that is created in a small, predetermined quantity to retain its integrity and value. In general, the smaller the quantities of an edition, the greater the value of each individual print. Each work is individually approved and signed by the artist, and then numbered to denote the individual print number within the edition amount. When every work within a limited edition is sold, the edition is closed out. Collectors can be assured that the limited edition they have purchased is completely exclusive and will not be reproduced beyond its stated edition size. Each limited edition work is accompanied by a formal Certificate of Authenticity, which validates the work and certifies that it is an authentic print within that edition. The Diversity of limited editions is boundless and exiting, including traditional mediums such as hand-pulled 
Discovered by German engraver Daniel Hopfer in the 16th Century, etching greatly expanded the possibilities for artists to express themselves in new and exiting ways. Rembrandt, Goya and Picasso have left us with brilliant examples of the etching medium. An etching begins when a zinc or copper plate is coated with an acid-impervious ground, usually a hard or soft wax. In a hard ground etching, the artist gently scratches a drawing into the ground with steel needles, exposing the metal plate beneath. In a soft ground etching, the artist creates images by placing paper over the wax with objects such as leaves or lace. For the skilled artist, the flexibility of etching offers vast potential for both boldness and subtlety in the image. When the drawing is completed, the artist immerses the metal plate in an acid bath. The areas covered by ground are protected from the acid; but the exposed areas scratched or pressed in the plate are “bitten” away, leaving incised lines. After the acid bath, the artist removes the ground from the plate and applies the ink. 
The plate is then wiped clean, leaving only the ink that has been pressed into the etching lines of the drawing. Ready for printing, the inked plate is placed face up on the printing press with a dampened sheet of paper positioned on top of it. Felt blankets are used for the top layer, creating a sandwich that squeezes the inked plate against the paper, transferring the drawing directly onto the paper. This labor intensive process requires a fresh inking of the plate for each print made in an edition, but the artist only has to make the drawing once and can now repeat the inking and press process as many times as they desire.
Lithography is a printing process invented by German playwright Alois Senefelder in 1798 when he was experimenting with ways to publish multiple copies of his plays and songs. Senefelder found that lithography had great commercial potential, particularly for advertisements and posters, so he patented the process in 1799. But because lithography proved an excellent process for capturing spontaneous lines and gastural marks, artists were quick to adapt the process to the creation of fine art print. Throughout its vivid history lithography has been practiced by many notable European artists, including Delacroix, Daumier, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Braque and Miro. Lithography still maintains its reputation as one of the most painterly printing methods available methods available. Lithography is a Plano graphic process in which the printing surface is uniformly flat- in other words; the drawing is on the same plane as the surface of the printing plate. Operating in the fact that grease and water don’t mix, the artist draws an image on to the printing surface of limestone or zinc with a greasy crayon of tusche (water soluble liquid or crayon). When the drawing is complete, the entire surface is dampened with a mixture of water and gum arabic. The water, repelled by the greasy lines of the drawing, covers only the open areas and leaves the design exposed, so that when the artist rolls oil-based ink on to the surface the ink adheres only to the greasy crayon drawing and is repelled by the areas dampened by water. The artist’s final step is to place a sheet of paper against the drawing on the inked plate or stone. A sheet of metal or plastic is placed on top of the paper and plate and they are braced together. 
The paper and plate are passed through a litho press, which uses a scraper bar rather than a roller to apply light, even pressure to the metal plate, pressing paper against stone (or zinc) so that it lifts the ink from the drawing and transfer’s a duplicate image on to the paper. This process is repeated for each color in the image. If an image has fifteen colors, then fifteen stones or plates are used, one per color. Upon completion of the edition, the artist signs each print to indicate approval of the quality, and numbers them to indicate their sequence within the edition.
Monoprints are original artworks that are created using a printmaking process. Artist across many disciplines, including Matisse, Degas and Klee, experimented widely with this exciting, spontaneous form of printmaking because it allowed them the freedom to manipulate the same drawing in endless unique ways. Monoprints parallel other forms of printmaking in that the artist draws, cuts or etches an image onto any surface (e.g. etching, lithograph, sheets of glass or acrylic) that will transfer the image onto paper. In many forms of printmaking, artists produce a series of identification prints by inkingand wiping the plate in exactly the same way before each press run. The crucial step of inking the plate surface is where monoprinting diverges from typical printmaking. Before the plate and paper are run through the press, the monoprint artist works the printing plate in a variety of ways, adding colors, wiping ink from the plate differently, Scratching the plate, or adding various elements such as lace, leaves, or fabric. The result is a series of completely different ideas all based upon the same underlying images; thus, a monoprint is a one-of-a-kind original print, each one derived from the same plate but individually hand manipulated and altered as part of the process of exploration and artistic experimentation. 
Additional techniques for creating monoprints vary widely and provide the artist with infinite opportunities for creative interpretation and play. Additive plate methods involve painting layers onto the plate where the artist wants the image to print. In subtractive methods the entire plate is inked and the image is created through erasing or wiping ink from the areas of the plate. The artist may allow the ink to dry first before transferring it to a dampened paper, or they may simply run the wet plate straight through the press for a more bold, image transfer.
Serigraphy is a stencil process that is also known as silk screening or screen-printing. One of the oldest printmaking techniques in use today, screen printing was developed in ancient China and Japan and eventually expanded to Europe, where it was readily adapted for various commercial uses, including posters, displays and signs. But it was not until the 1930’s that artists began to see the potential for screen-printing in their creative endeavors. Because of the painstaking labor of color separation, color application, press time and drying, a hand-pulled fine art serigraph edition may take up to 100 days to complete. The amount of time, skill and effort invested in the creation of a serigraph edition is reflected in the strong archival qualities of this medium-serigraphs enjoy extreme longevity, and are excellent heirloom pieces. Work on a Serigraph begins when the serigrapher separates the colors in the original painting. The serigrapher must literally recreate the entire work, while recognizing how to reinterpret the original painting using generally 100 or few colors. A stencil for individual color is transferred to a screen, which is typically made of silk, 
nylon or wire mesh stretched tightly across a frame. The ink is dragged over the screen with a squeegee and forced through the open areas of the stencil. In this way, the image is transferred to a piece of paper positioned beneath the screen. Each successive color requires a new screen and stencil to slowly build the image layer, creating the rich painterly textures that set serigraphs apart from other forms of image reproduction.