Printing

First, the giveaway drawing! I had my son help me with this, and we have a winner! Denise Moore, you have won the bag, apron, print, stickers and book! I will be contacting you this evening; I am excited to send you your prize!

Now, on to my blog post. I am so excited! I hinted at this several posts ago, but I am now up and running! I have purchased an archival grade printer, with pigmented inks instead of regular ink jet ink. This type of ink lasts up to 300 years if the art is taken care of properly. I am so excited!

Several things that surprised me. I knew that this would be a big printer, it has a capacity to take up to 17-inch-wide paper, and up to 24 inches long, but I didn’t realize how big it was going to be. I knew that the description said it weighted 80 pounds, but I didn’t think about how big 80 pounds was. So, when it arrived, I was a little taken back by the size of the box, and how heavy it was. But we got it downstairs and set up in my art/craft room.

The other thing that really surprised me was how easy it was to get it all set up to print. Tuesday night after it arrived, we hauled it downstairs and set it up. But I was tired and had to be up early, so that’s all that got done. The next day I spent getting ready for Thanksgiving, then Thursday was Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until Friday that I was able to sit down next to the printer, with my laptop and get everything synced and working. My son wanted to go to town, and I told him it probably wouldn’t happen that day because I didn’t know how long it would take. Well, 10 minutes later I was done and had a picture printed.

This isn’t the best picture of the piece of artwork I printed, but wow. The detail and color match are so impressive. I picked a picture with a variety of colors and gradients of color, and wow. I am super impressed. This isn’t the right paper for art prints, but for photography it would be spectacular! I am now waiting on the right paper; I have some ordered.

This printer is kind of a culmination of a variety of things I have been working on to make my business more self-sufficient. I love working with awesome local businesses, but I also love being able to produce my own art and prints myself. During Covid I decided to learn how to digitize my own art. There was definitely a learning curve to that, but the place I had my prints printed said I had done a terrific job color matching and they would print what I had personally digitized. This summer however, I discovered that sometimes the printers get really busy, and even though they are going as fast as they can, and sometimes having a hard time getting supplies, I am losing customers because I can’t get my prints fast enough. This printer was the final step in being able to be a standalone company, as well as being able to produce art for other local artists.

I am excited for this new adventure. If you are a local Alaskan and need art prints printed, I would love to talk to you about pricing and options!