Art Basics: Understanding the Differences Between Originals and Reproductions
1. What is a Hand-painted oil on canvas reproduction?
The reproduction process is finished entirely by hand by our skilled and experienced artists. Our artists have perfected their expertise through years of study and paintings. Each painting is 100% hand painted on canvas with high quality oils. Each painting is carefully reproduced to keep the closest possible match to the original. We make sure you can receive the absolute best quality.
2. What is a Limited Edition?
A limited edition is a series of identical prints, which are limited to a one-time printing of a certain number of pieces. The artist determines the size of the edition, and usually signs and numbers each individual piece.
3. What is a Lithograph?
Lithography is based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. Using oil-based ink or a grease crayon, an image is drawn on a flat stone or metal plate. Next, water is applied to the surface and is repelled by the areas where oil-based images have been drawn. The entire surface is then coated with an oil-based ink that adheres only to the areas drawn in oil, ink, or crayon. The image is then printed on paper. The popularity of this process grew because thousands of exact replicas could be made like drawings on paper, without degradation of the image.
4. What is a Serigraph or Silk screen?
Silk screening, which was introduced around 1907, presses ink through a fine screen onto paper. A stencil of an image is placed on a taut screen with paper underneath. Ink is then spread on top and forced through the screen onto the paper with a squeegee. Unlike photo-offset, silk screening allows the artist to vary the colors and patterns while printing.
5. What is a Giclee?
A giclee (zhee-CLAY), is an individually produced, high-resolution, high-fidelity, high tech reproduction done on a special large format printer. Giclees are produced from digital scans of existing artwork. Also, since many artists now paint only digitally, there was no “original” that can be hung on a wall. Giclees solve that problem, while creating a whole new vibrant medium for art.
Giclees can be printed on any number of media, from canvas to watercolor paper to vinyl, to transparent acetates. Giclees are superior to traditional lithography in nearly every way. The colors are brighter, last longer, and are so high-resolution that they are virtually ‘continuous tone’, rather than tiny dots. The range, or “gamut” of color for giclees is far beyond that of lithography, and details are crisper.
They are priced midway between original art and regular limited edition lithographs. Limited edition litho prints are usually produced in editions of 500-1000 or more, all at once; but giclees rarely exceed 50-100 high-quality reproductions, one at a time.
6. Are there significant quality differences between these types of prints?
-In terms of resolution, a giclee print has the highest resolution and color range.
Giclee printmaking offers one of the highest degrees of accuracy and richness of color available in any reproductions technique. Giclee printmaking provides a luminosity and brilliance that represents the artist’s original work better than any reproduction technique available today.
-A Serigraph is created when paint is ‘pushed’ through a silkscreen onto paper or canvas. A different screen is used for each color in the print, and this results in a print with great color density and many qualities of the original piece in terms of color saturation. This process also adds some texture to the final product.
-A Lithograph is the least manually intensive reproduction technique, and in turn, is not as expensive as a serigraph or giclee. Although images can have a high resolution, and excellent appearance, they will not have the same degree of resolution or color density as a serigraph or giclee.
7. Will the value of a limited edition increase like other collector’s items?
By their nature of being limited in number, demand for certain limited edition prints can be greater than the number of reproductions produced for the edition. Once an edition is sold out from the publisher, which means that the print is no longer available from the publisher but may still be available from an authorized dealer, the prints are considered to be on the Secondary Market. This means that the print can be bought and sold by any dealer or individual, often above issue price, depending on supply and demand
8. What does ‘S/N’ mean?
S/N is a symbol used to indicate that a limited edition has been signed and numbered by the artist himself/herself.
9. What is meant by the term ‘Archival’ and ‘acid-free’?
Paper or canvas treated to neutralize its natural acidity in order to protect fine art and photographic prints from discoloration and deterioration.
10. What is an Artist’s Proof, or what does A/P mean?
A small group of prints set aside from an edition for an artist’s or printer’s use. Typically some of the first prints pulled from a limited edition of prints, they are marked as an A.P. and [sometimes] left unnumbered. Artist’s proofs generally draw a higher price than other impressions.
11. Why does it take longer to get my Limited Edition print than it does to get a poster?
We order each limited edition from the publisher upon immediate demand. Therefore, we must take shipping time into account. In the event that you choose to have us frame your limited edition print, we must also allow time to custom frame your print to your exact specifications.
12. Why are Limited Edition prints so much more expensive than other prints on the site?
The premium price of limited editions is a function of the limited supply of each product, and the exceptionally high quality of these prints. Typically, the more manually intensive the process is, the more each limited edition print