[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Wednesday, 21 October 1998 Volume 05 : Number 319 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Graham Scholes Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 08:38:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Baren 1914] Re: Science and Color Jack Reisland wrote.... > I'm moving in December to a >new studio with north light, in Hawaii. That's obscene....no actually its beyond obscene....... Are you leaving before the winter rains? Graham ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 20:13:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Baren 1915] One-Point Lesson re promotion About a week ago Bill Ritchie contributed One-Point Lesson ... >(#27) Selling reproductions of your art ... > >Someone asked: "Is it helpful or harmful to have postcards, letterheads, >reproduction prints, etc. made from your original art? This might help >become more recognized, but may harm sales of the originals." When this was posted I assumed ....and I know one should never assume.... that is was to do with our Prints.... I read this and it was only the second time of reading that I triggered Bill was referring to "original art". I want to bring this to the attention of our newbie......as it is important that you do not.....I repeat DO NOT make reproductions of your prints. They are already prints. Be careful that you don't saturate the local market with a whole lot of reproduction images of your art. If ever you wanted a way to shut down the sales of your original work this is surely to method. I have had numerous acquaintances that have done just that and they were a flash in the pan and people got tired of the stuff. Some have recovered and others have turned away from the fine art field for fear of starving. Sure spread the stuff .... it is decorative art..... around just enough that you get some advertising use out of it. >One person I know has selected images made into >cloisonne pins which he sends out as holiday gifts. No harm there. When I find out what a cloisonne pins is then I will comment, but in the meantime I'm not so sure about that. How far way is that from coffee cups, baseball caps and Tshirts.????? Be careful people......be careful, your are in a medium that is a legitimate multiple image business and more multiples would be dicy if not down right greedy. Cheers Graham ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 20:13:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Baren 1916] Julio's request for help. Julion wrote me asking for help as follows...... >With the exchange-print time winding down, would you think it be >beneficial for some of you (like Dave, Daniel & yourself) that normally do >"large" (large being greater than 29 prints) editions to put out some kind >of "help or tips" info out on the Baren regarding printing large >numbers...for those of us who normally deal with just a handful of prints? > Just a thought. I jotted down a few things that some of you may find useful. (Some of this has been posted in the past.) There really is no secret about printing editions of 75 prints. I personally only do 10 or 15 at a time and then when they are sold will go back and print 10 more. Cutting and using 6 to 10 plates again is not a big deal. You need an understanding of what every plate and colour will do and why you need it. Most times I plan on 8 plates by preparing wood for that many. Then I work damn hard at cutting back the number to as few as required to make the statement. The one most important fact I found helped me in the sport was the 40 year of painting in watercolours with transparent pigments. You have to know what and where you are going when painting with that medium. I was never one to rely upon happy accidents as a method of doing watercolours. The same is true with our sport. You have to visualize what you want ...... have the knowledge to achieve it.......and the tenacity to see it through. The thingy that will help with the tenacity thing is to have two shows a year made up of lots of new work (I refer to watercolours or drawings. One show a year for W/B prints is about all one could handle to have enough new work for a show). Making a commitment like that, sure causes you to jack your butt. It also causes you to do better work for every show. You want to keep climbing the ladder of achievment and development skills. You may never reach that plateau, as your expectations keep one step ahead of you. I really don't know a better way. The time an artist thinks he is good is the end of his progress. I always strive to do something nobody has ever done before. Oh one more thought ..... I do a lot of mental analyzing of the subject I am going to tackle before actually doing any work. A peice could take me anywhere from 2 or 3 months to sort out. This is done while doing other jobs like printing, driving the car, gardening,chopping wood (2 cords this fall) so the time is well spent. I figure it pretty well takes me 6 weeks to do a piece from start, to carving, to first10 prints. A large percentage of the time is spent with the drawing and planning of the image before ever putting a knife to the wood. I spend a week varifying plates and colour on junk paper. Hope this helps. Regards, Graham I'm off to do another exhibition at Winchester Gallery in Victora in two weeks. CYA. ------------------------------ From: Sheryl Coppenger Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:25:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 1917] Re: boxes Hi, I tried to put the money order in the mail to David today, and the post office said they can't do Yen. I would have to convert to dollars and send a postal money order for that amount in US$. Does that sound right? I know from previous experience that if I have to buy a real international money order it will cost as much as the box. I'd probably be better off going to the money exchange and sending the Yen in cash in a registered letter. Can someone who does this all the time straighten me out? I've done few international purchases and almost always by credit card. Sheryl Coppenger ------------------------------ From: Sheryl Coppenger Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 00:36:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 1918] Re: One-Point Lesson re promotion Bill Ritchie wrote: > One person I know has selected images made into > >cloisonne pins which he sends out as holiday gifts. No harm there. Graham answered: > When I find out what a cloisonne pins is then I will comment, but in the > meantime I'm not so sure about that. How far way is that from coffee cups, > baseball caps and Tshirts.????? Cloisonne' is a method of enameling, used on jewelry and other small items. If the artist just makes them for holiday gifts and eventually hits the bigtime, I imagine these pins would be a really big collector's item some day. I don't have any plans for coffee cups, but I did buy a CD with t-shirt software on it and was thinking about trying that with a scanned image of one of my prints. Probably for Christmas presents rather than for the retail market. Sorry to offend your sensibilities, Graham. :-) I changed from painting to printmaking in large part because the latter is a more democratic medium. How far away does it *have* to be from coffee cups, baseball caps and Tshirts? Toulouse-Lautrec did theater advertisements, John Sloan did cartoons and book covers, others did propaganda or textile design. We're working in a democratic medium. Just my $.02. I'm feeling quite the little Bolshevik tonight. :-) Sheryl Coppenger ------------------------------ From: "Ray Esposito" Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 00:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Baren 1919] Re: boxes charset="iso-8859-1" Sheryl No problem. Just use a currency converter on the internet - Yahoo has an excellent one. Determine how much the Yen requested by Dave is for the day you are buying the money order and ask for that amount from the P.O. I can't presume to speak for Dave but I have sent him international money orders and he knows that it is impossible to predict each days conversion. The money order will cost just $3. Dave will hold the M.O. to get the best exchange rate he can. Cheers ------------------------------ From: Jack Reisland Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:20:29 -0700 Subject: [Baren 1920] Re: Science and Color Graham Scholes wrote: > Are you leaving before the winter rains? Somehow I doubt it, not with the rumors I've been hearing about this coming winter up here... Jack Reisland ------------------------------ From: David Bull Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:03:35 +0900 Subject: [Baren 1921] Re: printing large editions ... Julio wrote: > ... would be beneficial for some of you ... that normally do >"large" (large being greater than 29 prints) editions to >put out some kind of "help or tips" ... For somebody who has only made prints a few at a time, the idea of making 29 or more may seem like a bit of a challenge, but that is perhaps a bit of an illusion. It's the _proof copies_ which are the difficult ones. If you have got to the stage where you can make three or four prints that look like what you want, and that look sort of the same, then I think you won't have any trouble making the edition itself. Remember, you're not doing the whole print 'at once', but each colour separately. Once your trials and proofing are basically done, the process then switches to much more simple and mechanical one - in which everything is done one-at-a-time. - - get the batch of paper moistened and ready. - - get the pigment for just one colour mixed and ready. - - print one copy - check that it matches the proof you previously prepared. If so, do another one, and another one, and another one ... slowly and methodically one at a time ... until the batch is done. - - wrap up the stack of paper, clean up the block and brush, and go and check your email or something. Have a cup of coffee. Play with your kids ... - - when you feel ready to do some more - maybe the next day - get the next pigment ready ... And so on and so on. Repeat the process until it's all done. Please don't get the idea that making 29 prints has to be a titanic struggle with blocks, pigments, and brushes. Take it one step at a time. Graham _may_ disagree with this, but I think not - once the proofing is done, making a print is simply a matter of 'construction' ... a straightforward step by step process that continues methodically until it's done. *** Sheryl wrote: > The post office said they can't do Yen. Actually they _can_, but it seems that they don't want to, and have thus made it into a difficult tortuous procedure. The next best thing is simply to send the $US equivalent. Please note that anytime you are sending money to Japan, either to Gosho-san for a baren, to Matsumura-san for some brushes or something, or to Yamada Shokai for paper, please avoid bank drafts and cheques. Japanese banks charge the receiver a huge sum to cash these - in some cases much more than the draft is for. The International Money Order that is available from any US Post Office for a fee of a couple of dollars, is easily convertible here, and the recipient will get all the money (assuming the exchange rate doesn't boomerang during the time that the money order is in the mail ...) The other very easy way (for both parties) is for the US sender to go to his/her local bank and buy actual paper yen, put them in an envelope and send them over. I know that this is not usually recommended, but it works very well. The sender pays the lowest 'fees', and the recipient gets the _exact_ amount needed. > I've done > few international purchases and almost always by credit card. This is one that I'm wrestling with right now. I'm trying to find an easy way for my overseas subscribers to pay for their prints, and want to be able to have them simply give me their VISA number, so that I can submit a slip for each print shipped. I buy lots of stuff from the states on VISA (a new hard drive a couple of weeks ago, for example), and it's easy to do over the phone or 'net. But here in Japan, they still want an actual signature for each transaction. Dave B. ------------------------------ From: Steiner Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 17:34:47 +0900 Subject: [Baren 1922] yen money orders from Richard Steiner/Kyoto Sheryl wrote (baren 1917) that she had some trouble getting the post office to accept a yen MO. From others in The States I have heard that they have no trouble, so perhaps Sheryl should try another, maybe larger, PO. Here in Japan, we can send yen or dollars easily. A real MO is not expensive, by the way, so try another PO, Sheryl. Steiner/Kyoto ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V5 #319 ***************************