Advice on printing options
Forum > Practical Artby toby.e 12 Sep 2011 5:07 pm
8 Comments
Hi All,
I'm doing a small exhibition of sketches I made of passengers on the London Underground. I made around 100 A6 pencil sketches and would like to exhibit about 40 of the best ones. I'm also going to scan and work up the sketches and make a couple of prints, each print being comprised of a grid of worked up portraits in limited colour - perhaps 3-4 colours (re-interpreting them much more shape based than line based).
I have the means to produce the artwork for these prints (computer) and I'm thinking a fairly straighfroward way to go would be printing them on a commercial press (about A3 size), but for the two prints in this technique, the cost would put the unit price up pretty high...
Can anyone thing of alternatives to doing it this way? -one that came to mind was screen printing... I don't mind cutting out stencils, or producing separations for stencils, but what of the process? - I don't have screens and inks, so is there somewhere that would take the artwork and make prints based on my directions for a smaller cost than simply doing these on the press?
I guess potato prints, or something else similarly primitive could also work...
Any serious suggestions welcome!
Thanks
Toby
The cheapest option is photocopying, colour printing off a home printer would be easy. Woodcut and mangle? Night classes at artstation or the likes are an option. Muka press will tech you through the process for money.
Good luck.
What I really want to produce is something that will last and have an attractive appeal. For that reason, photocopying and home printer options are out. I have some time to invest, so the wood block printing could be a good solution - Though I'm guessing that the costs will start to mount up fairly rapidly down that route if I want to use durable inks and good paper. - I will research options for that and measure them against offset.
So to clarify - what I'm really looking for is an appealing result at the lower cost end of a professional result.
probably best to talk to these guys they sort out your prints and have one of the few remaining print galleries.
Where are you based tobye?
the screen print option should be straight forward (depending on how many colour separations there are); talk to a screen printer and tell them what you want (some printers will take part payment in prints if they like them) and it shouldn't cost too much, depending on the paper you choose to use. screen printing is okay but not as 'refined' as intaglio or litho.
i don't think wood-cuts or 'relief' printing is the way forward as you will have to make multiple plates and/or print your separations as you go.
alternatively contact Paper Graphica in chch www.papergraphica.co.nz and get some advice.
Anyone with more options... keep them coming - thanks in advance.
