What is a Giclee print???

Giclee is such a fun and fancy word to say. It is a French word, pronounced zhee-klay. Say it! You are now speaking French! Fantastique!! kiss. kiss.

The picture above is of all the wonderful archival inks that are used to produce a giclee. They are not ordinary inks. They are special, light-fast, inks which will remain true to the original painting. The result is as close to the original painting that you can possibly achieve.

The original painting is scanned on a high resolution scanner creating an image with all the tonalities and hues of the original. It can then be printed on a printer with the pretty ink and voilà!

As an artist, making prints of my artwork is rewarding because all the effort I put into an original is not gone forever with one sale. As a buyer, it's a great way to own pieces of really great art at an affordable price. Win. Win!

This week I am busy scanning and printing giclee prints of some new originals. They will soon be up in the online shop. Please stop by and take a look. Think about owning some affordable art.

I have a new excitement this week as 3 originals have sold and are on their way to new homes!! Prints are always great but to sell an original is very special!!

Celebrating My Valentine

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! I just had to take a quick moment to celebrate my Valentine today! This is the message that I woke up to this morning on my bathroom mirror. And the flowers he sent were beautiful. And the special dinner tonight I am looking forward to so much!! He is the most precious person. I am very blessed to have him in my life. He is like this every day. Always treating me like a cherished gift. He makes life so fun!!

This is him! My Sweetheart. My Valentine! I..... LOVE.......MY........ LIFE!!!!! Thank you, sweetie!

Get Your Paint On paintings

Week 2

Week 1

These are both paintings I did for my class, "Get Your Paint On".

Our assignment for week 1 was to use a geometric quilt block for inspiration. 'Skyline' 18x18 was a result of the inspiration.

The assignment for week 2 was to choose an artist that we love and use the technique, color scheme, or style to use in our painting either figuratively or literally. I chose Guido Frick because I have long admired the freedom in his work. His style is effortless and loose. I would love to learn to be so free and still have it make sense on the canvas! His colors are much softer than I have in my result 'Floral' 12x12. Much to learn!!

Baby, it's cold outside......but that's ok.

I am so excited about doing more with this new technique that it really is okay (for today) that it's brrrrrr outside. These ink paintings are making beautiful cards!

Today I am working on some larger pieces in ink. Hopefully, I can get these up on Etsy soon. This medium is so much fun to work with and it brings lots of beautiful surprises!

Right now, all these cards are originals but I want to work on making some prints, especially with the larger pieces.

The MAC + the painting + the snow

So much of the country has been pounded by the worst winter. Here we are in South Texas....frrrreeeeezzzzzing (for us) and the town closed down with 3/4 in. of snow!! This is looking out my front door. Many kids have never seen snow here before! My daughter's text said they are expecting 9 more inches tonight. When the sun finally does show it's warmness again people will be out everywhere soaking in all in! Cabin fever!!

All this news is from last week though (except for the 9 new inches coming at Bre's tonight) because my computer got sick....a nasty virus. It was on it's last leg anyway so we opted for a new computer. Such a hard decision, being PC people, but we made the switch and got a MAC. Everyone says we made the right choice. So far, so good. A little learning curve but I like it.

In the meantime, I put one of my paintings up on FB just to show and it sold!! That is such an awesome feeling to have someone search me out and ask if they could buy it! YAY! YAY! YAY! Happy Dance!!

My class is going well. Now on week 2. Our assignment this week is to choose an artist that we love and use that to inspire our next painting. I love so many that I am having a hard time deciding. We can choose anything from their colors, style, or technique to use in our piece either figuratively or literally. Challenging. I will post pictures from Week 1 & 2 soon. That learning curve I was talking about is happening right about now.

Stay warm.