Things to come: high quality art prints
I’m starting a new phase of the Big Project
I’m working out how to create works suitable for making into prints - both drawings in graphite and charcoal, and digital “paintings”. Here’s an outline of the plan, which is being added to the top navigation bar of the World of Hilarity substack. Updates will come as these works are finished and made available for clients to purchase as one-off, museum quality art prints.
This page is a placeholder. I’m going to be adding photos of my painting and drawing work onto World of Hilarity, with a mind to making prints of these works available for purchase.
As each printable piece is finished, it will be scanned and a photo posted here with a range of prices and printing and shipping options. Interested readers will be able to just drop me an email and we can arrange the printing, delivery and payment.
Right now I don’t have a suitable candidate ready
Until recently my focus has been exclusively on learning the full range of technical skills involved in creating paintings in egg tempera - on panels and gesso-treated watercolour paper - in the traditional manner of the Italian Byzantine, Gothic, Trecento and early Renaissance. But recently I’ve been hearing from people who say they would be interested in good quality prints not only of some of my painting work but also of the drawings. And I’ve been having some ideas.
Now, I’m not willing to part with the drawings themselves, and I’ve never done any of my graphite drawings with a mind to sell them as prints. This is why they all look somewhat rough, with the focus on finished facial features, hands and drapery, and the rest left blank, haloes and other extraneous features merely sketched, and no background details. These drawings are made for my own use to create finished paintings, so I only do the bits that I need as reference while I’m painting. A lot of the finished painting - the Virgin’s gown above, for instance - will have work done in gold leaf decorative techniques which I will do directly on the panel, so they’re not included in the drawing.
The wonderful world of “digital products”
And the big panel paintings, all commissions, are often laden with gold leaf which does not scan or photograph easily and are not really suitable for prints.
But recently I’ve had the idea to start using digital media to create works that could be printed and priced lower than the full scale egg tempera panel paintings. For these I thought I could do the drawings in graphite as usual, then scan them with a high resolution scanner and colourise and finish - “paint” them - digitally.
And it occurs to me that for each of the panel paintings I did fully rendered graphite or charcoal preparatory drawings, which I’ve still got. These could be scanned and used again as the basis of either more egg tempera paintings on commission, or digital paintings for prints. And each would be unique works, not merely copies of the first versions.
At first I had thought only to create digital versions of the drawings to create a kind of online catalogue for clients ordering full painted icons, to give them an idea what the final work could look like. Then a friend clouted me upside the back of the head and said, “Why don’t you offer prints of the digital paintings?… For that matter, why not the drawings too?”
And I had to protest that the drawings aren’t suitable, not being finished works… But then I thought, gosh, why not? People have asked me many times if I would be willing to sell the drawings, and my answer has always been no.
But what if the drawings were scanned and printed on museum quality archival paper, the same paper I use myself to create them? Being a pretty old-fashioned, analogue kind of person - still think digital watches are a pretty nifty idea, etc - I didn’t really know that there are companies that will receive your scanned digital file by email and print the work on high quality paper and even deliver it to your customer.
I’ve said many times that I enjoy the drawing stage of the work very much, and often like it better than the finished painting, I suppose for the same reason I prefer black and white photography. I love graphite and charcoal as fine art media and rather regret not being able to do more of it.
I’ve never tried digital “painting” but it doesn’t look nearly as difficult as actual painting in egg tempera or oils. And I hear you can do some fun effects. Maybe even something that looks like gilding.
I’ve still got a few details to work out, including finding the right digital painting programme and getting hold of a good quality high resolution scanner, or finding a printing shop near me - maybe in Rome or Terni - that can do the work. And then I have to start producing some more graphite and charcoal drawings suitable to stand
alone as finished works, and for digital colourising. And then I have to learn how to do the digital colourising.
But I’ll keep posting photos of the works as they progress and see if anyone would like one of their own, and we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve given myself 5.5 years (the famous 10,000 hours, divided by 36 hours a week) to learn everything I need to get to a professional level of skill. I’m 3.5 years in. If you’d like to support my Big Project by donating or even signing up to become a monthly patron, you can click the button below, and thanks.
And stay tuned for developments.
This is a great idea. Elizabeth Zelasko has an instagram page and she does this with her art. I have bought a couple of prints of drawings and icons and they grace our prayer room. Original art is a bit out of my price range right now, so I appreciate a way to support the artists that I love. We would absolutely purchase some of your art.
Wonderful idea! I’ll be keeping an eye on this project!