GICLEE COPIES
If you’d like another copy of your pencil or watercolour portrait to give as a gift to a relative, I can order a giclée print for you.
I use a fantastic printer based in Kent, who reproduces the artwork so well that I don’t think you’d ever be able to tell that it wasn’t an original hand drawing. Below, you can see a portrait (left) alongside its reproduction (on the right). You can click on it to enlarge and compare the two
I take a series of high resolution scans of every pencil portrait before sending it out so that customers may come back at any point to order a printed copy.
The process
I’ll first splice several high-resolution scans together using Adobe Photoshop and blend them so that you can’t see the join. I then prepare the image by ‘cleaning it up’ digitally – removing any tonal variation added by the scanning process and adjusting the values to produce the closest match to your original portrait. Finally I send the finished file off to the printer who sets up and calibrates the image, before running off a ‘proof’ for me to check.
About giclée prints
If you’ve ever wondered what exactly a giclée print is, the answer is that in truth it’s something of a made up name! Pronounced ‘zhee-clay’ the word comes from the French word ‘gliceur’ meaning ‘nozzle’. It’s a generic term coined in 1991 by a printmaker to describe high-quality, large format, digital fine-art prints created with an ink-jet printer, as opposed to those created using the traditional offset lithography process that was previously prevalent. Whereas personal desktop printers will typically use only 3 colour cartridges, the big professional printers used to create a giclée print will use 8-12 different colour cartridges of very stable, fade-resistant archival ink.
Giclée prints cost a lot less than ordering another original portrait, and if ordering more than one print the prices become even more cost effective since the main costs for the printer are in the initial ‘setting up’ process – meaning that additional prints are much less.
Prices are listed below and include delivery to UK destinations. For international orders or for larger print sizes, please get in touch for a quote
GICLEE PRINT PRICES
30 x 25 cm size portrait: one print = £77.00 (for each additional copy, add £20.00)
40x 35 size portrait: one print = £90.00 (for each additional copy, add £27.00)
