Grotesques and art prints

This gargoyle sits and lurks under the shade of a hosta plant by the front steps. Gargoyles have always had a fascination for me. The word "Gargoyle" shares a common root with the word "Gargle"; which comes from "gargouille", an French word for "Throat". A true gargoyle is a waterspout. An unusual carved creature that does not serve that purpose is properly called a "Grotesque."

My little "Grotesque" sits amongst the leaves and scares spiders. He's another drawing in the making I think - without the goose/duck/chicken barrier fence! And you can see why that barrier is necessary if you notice the carefully 'pruned' leaves of the hosta...

Currently this coloured pencil drawing is on my drafting table. It seems slow going and I'm losing interest in it. But perhaps I'll keep trying and see if I can make it come together.

Having just completed my 'Weeds' drawing, it would lend itself to prints, either as stand alone or in the form of notecards. The original is 9" x 12" on Bristol Vellum white. I haven't ventured into the print side of art previously so I know little about the process. However, it seems like a good idea to be able to offer my work at reasonable prices to people who don't have a budget that runs to original art, but happily can afford prints.

Giclée (jee-clay) is an advanced printmaking process for creating high quality fine art reproductions. The attainable quality that Giclée printmaking affords makes the reproduction virtually indistinguishable from the original artwork. The result is wide acceptance of high quality Giclées by galleries, museums, and private collectors.

Prior to the advent of giclee printing, the standard method of reproducing art was lithography. Because this process requires the creation of a printing plate, made by scanning and color-separating the art, lithography is a fairly expensive process. The bulk of the cost is in set-up, so to make affordable prints, large numbers are required to amortize the cost over a greater quantity. Hence, lithographs are usually made in runs of at least 500-1000. Lithography is also limited to printing on smooth paper.

Technorati tags: art, prints, drawing, giclee, gargoyle, grotesque