Finished, Printed, and displayed ArtRage Artwork

[fraser_paice]

A word of warning, when I had this one framed they asked if I wanted it under glass but the printers had claimed the ink was fast for a hundred years etc, so I didn't... So while I was decorating I put it in the shed, covered in paper. A slug or snail got under the paper and it's trail has lifted the ink, they are water based inks. You can see the discolouration at the base of the tree on the right, I'm thinking of trying to touch it up with water colour paint.

Next one is going to be under glass or varnished!

[screenpainter]

That looks great Neil. (Even signed by sluggo the slug. wow. collectible. )
But seriously, it looks beautiful.

[Sketchism71]

Neil, I remember that painting and it is one of my favorites. The print looks great! Great lighting! Was the service a bit sluggish? I assume you used snail mail...lol! Thanks for posting!

Below is the Birthday Invitation I did for my son. Might clean it up a little and add a few more bells and whistles to it. Printed on my home ink jet. Turned out pretty nice (I thought it would print a lot darker but it wasn't to bad.

[coops]

Thats turned out great Sketch, bet all the children will love it

[byroncallas]

I've been away from this thread for a while. Lots of cool updates.

Regarding Monitor Calibration, there are excellent reviews on the Spider 3 device at: http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/r...der3elite.html

You might find these reviews helpful.

I am ordering the Spider 3 Elite, with fingers crossed.

Other links in the site will take you to reviews of other Spider versions. For my purposes I like the Elite since it has multi-monitor calibration capabilities.

I would suggest not getting the older Spider 2, which I understand is good, but less reliable.

Cheers all,
Byron

EDIT: The Spider 3 Elite turned out to be a great device. Pretty darn good.

[screenpainter]

Sketch that turned out fantastic!

[byroncallas]

Sketch - I love the poster. Terrific. Great fun. Looks like it printed GREAT.

Neil - your painting looks handsome there on your wall. I get some of my stuff printed at a local shop on canvas with the big six-color HP plotters. Those inks are water-soluble and must always go under glass or be spray varnished. They are certainly not archival inks, which I think will be true with any of these low-cost ink-jet printings (I'm presuming yours was an ink-jet process(?))

[Sketchism71]

Thank you Albert!

Byron, you found yet another can of worms in this bucket of snakes of a thread...lol So if I have my images printed on canvas they should still be framed behind glass? If that is true, I would have never of guessed that! Hmmm. How do you know if ink is archival or safe?

As little as I know about printing, I know even less about ink.

...and thanks for the comment!

[byroncallas]

Thank you Albert!

Byron, you found yet another can of worms in this bucket of snakes of a thread...lol So if I have my images printed on canvas they should still be framed behind glass? If that is true, I would have never of guessed that! Hmmm. How do you know if ink is archival or safe?

LOL Sketch.

A bottom line for all that follows is that printing your painting produces a fragile product that is easily damaged by light, liquids, dust and baby spit. If longevity matters, putting it under UV protected glass is your best option. You can stop here if that's all you really care to know. If you want the Encyclopedia Britannica synopsis, the following might be useful.

*******************
Even the best of the ink-jet and similar printing process available will not produce damage proof surfaces that come close to traditional oil paints. They are easily abrased and damaged by light, liquids, and plain old atmospheric grime and humidity.

You can easily test this. Test a sample from any printing process you are planning to use. Put water on a rag (and some other cleaning liquids) and rub lightly and see what happens. You will see different results depending on a host of variables including different inks, varnishes, and substrates. But you will see deterioration, in many instances dramatic deterioration.

The best of the offerings is Giclee. Giclee uses archival, light-fast inks. They are beautiful, stable, light-fast and last. But even with those, many artists have the printer apply a final printers varnish for protection. Why? Paintings not under glass collect dust, dirt and grime. To get it off, the paint (or ink) needs a protective surface, or must itself be insoluble to water or other cleaning solutions.

Ink deterioration from water damage is reduced in many photographic reproduction processes, but the substrate is paper which is easily damaged by liquid of any type.

Put this in context. If it's going to be hanging on a wall for many years its going to get filthy. Consider how quickly dirt builds up on your windows and mirrors. That is happening to anything hanging on your wall, including your painting. In a year a film of grime will collect. Of course, many people have no idea how filthy the paintings on their walls have become. They are surprised to see how beautiful they become when cleaned. There is an entire industry of people working in museums whose job it is to remove the grime collecting on paintings.

Test any process you are going to use to find out what would happen if you tried to clean your painting. And remember, it's not just the inks, but the substrates. Printing on paper will present different cleaning problems than printing on canvas, plastic, vinyl, metal, etc. Likewise if it's just an accident and water spills on it or a snail crawls across it or the baby spits.

Bottom line, all the above argues for putting anything that really matters to you under UV protected glass. We didn't really review light-fastness here, but the short version is that direct sunlight will damage your colors in short order, and ambient light will work its damage over time. UV protected glass reduces light damage, and of course, doesn't melt with the application of Windex.

The exception here may be protected giclee paintings because the printing process also prints texture. The whole point is that they look like real paintings that are not behind glass. To a large degree, putting some giclee paintings behind glass defeats the whole purpose of printing them with giclee in the first place. Nevertheless, they need to be varnished and treated carefully when cleaned, and are best hung in your cleanest rooms well out of direct sunlight.

For low volume, fine-art printing, currently giclee provides the best affordable reproduction fidelity, light-fastness and ink stability. But it's still an ink-jet process. Compared to paintings in oil, they are considerably fragile and easily damaged. Since the processes are new, they have not passed the test of time and there is debate. The industry statements often predict about 30 years of high stability and lightfastness. Protected oil paintings, on the other hand, have survived hundreds of years after considerable abuse.

The following is excerpted from ArtSales.com regarding giclee printing. It's states it all pretty well.

What is the expected life of a Giclee print?

The most important fact to remember is that all color fades. As far as fine art prints produced by Giclee are concerned, some original watercolors & most lithographs will fade faster than a well-made Giclee. Unlike lithographs and serigraphs, Giclees have undergone extensive, third-party fade-testing.
While the predicted display life depends on many variables, under typical home or office lighting , and depending on the papers used, giclees made with wide-gamut pigmented inks are estimated to last 35-100 years without noticeable fade. These estimates are based on laboratory simulations of aging. All of our testing information comes from independent testing labs and the manufacturers of the materials we use. artsales.com shall not be responsible for any damage to our prints from improper handling or from exposure to extreme environmental conditions.

Do Giclee prints require special care?

We recommend that you treat your art prints produced by Giclee the same as other original limited edition prints. It should be protected from water and should not be placed in direct sunlight. Giclees printed on paper should be frame mounted behind glass or, if on Arches paper, may be mounted on a panel and varnished. Giclees printed on canvas are treated with an acrylic varnish to aid in their protection, however careful treatment is still desirable.

Considering that Giclee, the most advanced of the ink-jet process available, requires such delicate handling, it becomes obvious that everything below it requires even greater attention to safe handling and protection from the environment.
:
The discussion above doesn't consider offset lithography, since it's a volume printing process. Fantastically permanent inks and varnishes can be applied. But the printing is usually on paper-based substrates harmed by liquids. Consequently, paintings printed with offset lithography process are usually put under glass even though the inks may have a high degree of permanence.

[Sketchism71]

Wow Byron, you are an endless resource of information in this subject... I think I will go sit at the little kids table now! LOL

This is all very interesting and what a great response... Thank you. I'm sure many here (including me) will find that extremely helpful!