About prints
'Limited Edition' prints
'Limited Edition' prints are numbered as produced in only one sequential run.
The stated total edition size will not be exceeded, and no subsequent reprints will be published.
’Limited Edition’ images are not available for sale in any other format world wide forever.
'Collectors Edition' of Signed and Numbered Edition prints
'Collectors Edition' are prints which are signed and numbered by the artist without a limit to the edition size.
'Collectors Edition' prints are published to the same high quality as 'Limited Edition' prints.
'Collectors Edition' images may also be used in other formats such as greetings cards or licensed products.
'Artist Handmade Signed Greetings Cards'.
We produce a range of small greetings cards with small giclee prints stuck on the front. The cards are hand signed by Colin or Fran, whoever is the artist, and bagged with an envelope. This range is available through a limited number of galleries who also stock larger signed giclee prints of the same images. We have recently decided to make this series available online from this website. Any image on the signed and numbered portfolio can be produced as a card. However NO images from the Limited Edition range are available as cards.
The cards can also be used as framed minatures if you find a good framer.
What is a digigraph?
A ‘digital graphic’ is an image created using digital painting tools.
from digital
1. using fingers or by hand,
2. expressed in numerical form for computers.
and graphic
1. of or relating to pictorial representation.
2. drawn with pen or pencil.
3. lifelike, vivid.
Giclee or digigraph?
'Giclee', which has an unfortunate indecent slang meaning in French, is gradually becoming understood in the English speaking art world to describe fine art reproductions using wide format inkjet printers.
Some galleries and art fairs are restricting or refusing exhibits described as 'giclee' because they are assumed to be reproductions.
It is worth bearing in mind that the resistance to giclee is sometimes luddite in nature, as independent traditional original print makers using silkscreen or plate processes feel threatened by a quicker and less craftsmanlike technology.
In the early giclee days giclee images were expensive to print because they were labour intensive, time consuming, and required expensive machinery that printed one image an hour.
At the turn of the century Giclee was attracting a premium price, which equated giclee prints with original silkscreen prints in the fine art market place.
The quality of giclee is no longer questionable as giclees have had independent verification of lightfastness.
The public are gradually coming to know and accept giclee art, encouraging waverers and doubters.
At the same time technology is improving to reduce production costs, and giclee is being used more and more by publishers of open editions, and the price of giclees is coming down.
The premium enjoyed by the pioneers in this medium is at risk.
The new technology has inspired some artists to create art, for low run production, deliberately employing the special characteristics of digital computer imaging and inkjet printing.
These new technology images deserve and command a price premium in the same way that hand pulled screen prints do.
An art piece that is created wholly on a computer and then printed using wide format inkjet printers is a 'digital' production. It is digitally created on the computer by the artist and printed digitally on the inkjet.
Another name is required to describe this digitally created art that does not imply that the artist merely pressed a button on a computer and made the piece. So 'computer art' or 'computer aided art' is unsatisfactory.
Previously, new ways of making images have gone on to become successful and accepted in time. They often use the ...graph suffix . Examples include, photograph, lithograph, and serigraph.
It can be described as a digital graphic, or ‘digigraph’.
The difference between an ‘original digigraph’ and a ‘giclee fine art print’ is that a digigraph is wholly designed and created, by the artist using computer aided tools, and designed to exist in print format; while a giclee print can be either a reproduction of an existing art work, or a deliberate new art work, or a combination of these.
Both descriptions, giclee and digigraph, describe a process that uses lightfast archival inks, usually printed with a wide format inkjet printer onto heavyweight fine art paper or canvas. Both are processes creating valid art forms and creative visual languages.
The following is a possible description of my digigraph artwork;
This ‘original digigraph’ …… was created by the artists hand with a pressure sensitive digital stylus on a Wacom Cintique painting tablet, utilising Adobe Photoshop 7 and/or Corel Painter 8.
Output was through a PC Pentium 120 gigabyte processor driving an Epson Stylus Pro 9600 piezzo-head printer, using the Ultrachrome pigmented inkset [matt black option], on Hahnemuhle German Etching 310 gsm coated paper stock.
Giclee editions.
Crabfish publish high quality giclee 'limited edition' and other prints using the best and latest technology. The prints are printed to the Fine Art Trade Guild specifications for lightfastness and quality, and are available on heavy weight etching paper or artists canvas. Each image comes with its own Certificate of Authenticity.
Each image is available in several sizes.
Images are usually 'printed upon demand' when orders are received.