Three New Giclée Prints

Crown Grove

I decided to send off three photographs to a new printer I have found on line. They were having a sale and it seemed a good time to invest in inventory which could be sold during the holiday season.

The real plus with photography is it can be kept in the computer till time to sell. This is different than painting which requires an investment in materials before you even begin. So when money is short giclée prints are unrealized. Good for the photographer but difficult for the art buyer. They have a difficult time looking at a digital image on their computer and imagining it hanging on the wall.

And I have in the years of selling giclée canvas prints dealt with printers personally. Even sat at their side and approved changes they made before printing. And I have gotten the canvas or paper prints and done my own stretching, framing or matting. Prints on paper, matted and framed are very easy to do in house . . . or in studio and at times I have simply done a print and mailed it to the buyer for them to have framed. It is a big problem shipping a frame with glass. And expensive.

Stretched canvas art is lighter and easier to ship. But another side effect of having my photographs printed on canvas is the buyer (and the viewer) often sees them as paintings. They sell cheaper than paintings but obviously translate as "art" more than prints on paper under glass. And the price point is definitely attractive to the buyer. Businesses like Enchanted Circle Brewery in Angel Fire seek art on their walls. And it is easier for us artists to provide it if it is a canvas print.

Heading Home

It is going to be a good year to sell art. I say optimistically. Two years of galleries and studios being shut down has homeowners wanting art on their walls. Especially all the new home owners following the recent real estate boom. And it looks as if supply chain issues will not be a consideration with local artists. The items you buy from local artists will not be lost in a container which fell off a barge in the harbor.

And most of us switched to buying our supplies locally when the pandemic shut everything down in 2021. Whether printers will have issues with canvas and inks remains to be seen. It just seemed wise to have some of my images put on canvas to hang on walls even if the wall space is getting scarce. But I sold four paintings off my walls and two giclée's off the Brewery walls so it seemed a good time to invest.

 

Bench in Autumn 

 

And the really good news is these can be reprinted. Part of this exercise was to determine the turn around time required by my new professional printer.

Golden Days of Indian Summer

Standing out in a crowd

Some autumns are just better than others. This one was different. It looked like snow would come early but after a couple brief false starts it went away. Nights have been cold but the days warm. Windy and busy so I have had to sneak in my leaf peeping. But after years living here I have most of the most spectacular show offs memorized like the crown grove below. The weather conditions gave it more red and orange this year. 

Crown grove

But there were some surprises like when I got lost down an off road in Valley of the Utes. loved the layers of colors visible from the top of a hill.

Valley of the Utes 

The winds blew the high clouds around and in the photo below seemed to give this grove of aspen a halo or tiara.

But sometimes it isn't about a huge grove of color but the light within the grove. Autumn light in a New Mexico forest has a unique color and feel.

Bench in the shade of aspens

Gold on a familiar hillside

And There Is Life

Lonely Cloud and On the Edge

And the official studio tour was again cancelled. And it looked to be death to arts yet again. But we all did not go so easily into the dark. It becomes irritating to be deemed non-essential for another year. Music from Angel Fire decided to protest and continue its concerts. And give space to a select group of artists in their lobby. As one of the chosen I took paintings down from the wall to haul into the light.

It always feels a little artificial to chose which to show off. Which creation to sacrifice? Which to say, these I am most proud of? I had just finished Return of the Yei on the upper right. After a year I was relieved to have it off the easel. I sold the little shelf duo on the table at the exhibit. And at the South Loop Studio Tour I sold Rio Grande Rio in the upper left.

Exhibit at Music from Angel Fire Gallery 2021

The Enchanted Circle South Loop Studio tour was the rebellion born by artists talking at the MFAF Gallery Exhibits. It was a rag tag group of 14 artists started from three. We were scattered around in six studios with only two weeks to get it all together. Meetings held on Zoom. Grand ideas and no time and no budget. A couple hasty press releases and just promoting on social media sources. Not everyone knowing how to do that. Lots of work for possibly no business. But there was interest. And they found their way to our studios with no big fancy brochure and map. And so what if it was just locals. They bought art.

Rio Grande Rio
SOLD

Tres Amigos
SOLD

And since that magical weekend the movement seems to have continued. I have rehung paintings and rearranged and then gotten a call to hold this one or that one to be picked up this week from the studio or the Shuter Library of Angel Fire where an exhibit of my paintings have been hiding out through the pandemic.

Return of the Yei
16 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1200

The activity has inspired me to paint again. In case you missed it I was debating not painting again. I figured Return of the Yei would be my last painting. Wild Goose Witchery creations also did well at the rogue studio tour. But to have it look like an active art studio I had begun another big canvas to sit on the easel. And doing a couple 5x5's for the Shuter Library fund raiser I ordered more paints and some new brushes.

Diptych of 5x5's
Mixed media on artist canvas