What is a Fine Art Print, Anyway?

Traditionally, a print has been a reproduction of an original piece of artwork, usually done by an offset printing process, lithography, or other traditional printing method. With the advent of computer generated artwork and the ink jet printing process, new terms are needed. As with any evolving terminology, the same terms are often used in different ways by different people. I will endeavor to explain here how I use the terms in relationship to my artwork.

The most well known type of fine art print is the Iris print, also sometimes called the Giclee print. The Iris printing process was one of the first, high quality ink jet processes developed and has been widely used to create digital prints intended for use as fine art. The term "giclee" comes from the French word "gicleur," meaning "nozzle." "Gicler" is the French verb meaning "to spray." Since all ink jet printers, including Iris printers, spray the inks onto the paper via nozzles, sometimes the term Giclee is used to mean any ink jet print. It is a confusing and often debated issue, and I find no reason to expand on that debate here.

I find it easier to refer to Iris prints as just that, Iris, and prints made on other ink jet printers by manufacturers other than Iris, as fine art prints. There are many printers, by a number of manufacturers, now on the market which produce extremely high quality, stunning prints on a variety of surfaces (from canvas to photo papers) with a variety of inks, both pigmented and dye based. These are what I would call fine art prints, those created as high quality ink jet prints, directly from a digital file, and for fine art, rather than commercial use.

For a digital artist like myself, the prints I create myself are original prints, not reproductions. They are the final process of putting ink to paper in the experience of creating the artwork. I create my images on a computer with a variety of 2 and 3 dimensional imaging programs, then print them myself using one of the newer, high quality ink jet technologies. I take a great deal of time and effort with each print to get on paper the exact colors, contrast, lightness and darkness, etc. of the image I created on the screen. These are original prints.

When another printmaker licenses my work and creates and sells prints of it, as several printmakers have done, these images I considered reproductions. They are still high quality prints, but every different printer, paper and ink will produce slight changes in color, contrast, etc. There is no way to guarantee they will match exactly with the original I created. That is not to say they are not beautiful prints (they are! please don't hesitate to purchase them), just that only when I print the image myself are you getting an original print.

New World Creations' original fine art prints are offered as Archival Giclees. All original prints are signed and dated.

These prints are created with archival pigmented inks on archival papers. Currently we are offering them on heavy weight, fine art watercolor paper. These papers and inks are rated at anywhere from 50 to 200 years, depending on display conditions, and are considered museum quality. They should be framed under glass and hung away from direct sunlight for maximum longevity.

Digital art is an exciting new media and is growing and evolving on a constant basis. I hope buyers will be as blessed by the prints they purchase as I am in the process of creating them.

The Visionary Art of Atmara Rebecca Cloe and New World Creations can be purchased directly from the Artisans & Craftsmen website (http://www.artisansandcraftsmen.net) in the Prints section of the site. To contact the artist please send email to: info@nwcreations.com.