About Gicleé Prints
What is a Gicleé?
A certain category of fine art print is known in the art world as Gicleé (zhee-clay). Gicleé is a French term; in this case meaning "spray of ink".
What is the process?
The cornerstone of this process is enhanced Iris digital inkjet printers which has been specifically modified for the rigorous and precise criteria of fine art collectors and connoisseurs of museum quality, limited edition prints.
The printers use continuous tone technology in which infinitely small pixels of color are capable of rendering an amazingly smooth and consistent image — to faithfully mirror the artist's original oil painting, watercolor, photograph, or digital art. The substrate (material, paper or canvas) is affixed to a drum and, as the drum rotates at a very high speed, individual droplets of color are sprayed onto the surface at a rate of 4-5 million droplets per second. Once completed, a 34" x 36" image is comprised of almost 20 billion droplets of ink. In this process, the most archival, water based organic inks available in the world are used. The print is completed by applying UV light resistant and light stabilizer post-coatings. The results are highly prized, museum quality prints in a limited edition.
Why is Gicleé printing the way of the future?
The apparent resolution of the digital print is 1,800 dots per inch, which is higher than a traditional lithographic print and has a wider range of color than serigraphy. Gicleé prints render deep, saturated colors and have a beautiful painterly quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends.
A Variety of Substrates Can Be Used
These include archival watercolor paper (such as Arches, Somerset and Laguna), glossy paper and cotton duck canvas. All of Nancy Massoll's Gicleés are sprayed on archival quality canvas. This lends a very realistic reproduction of her original oil paintings. They can be stretched on wooden stretcher bars and displayed without glass or the Gicleé can be matted and framed under protective glass like a traditional paper print.
Causes of Damage & Guidelines For Care
The primary cause of damage to fine art is the storage or display of paintings in inappropriate environments. This includes display or storage in areas where there is excessive exposure to light, high and/or fluctuating temperature and humidity levels, dirt or insects. Damage can also be caused by careless handling and the improper cleaning of Gicleé.
Light Levels
Excessively high light levels can cause the fading and/or darkening of paintings. Some paintings darken so severely that the painting and its details are no longer visible. In order to avoid damage caused by light, paintings should be displayed in dim areas where no direct sunlight is allowed to fall on the painting. The suggested light level for paintings is 200 lux. Light levels can be measured using the light meter in a 35mm camera.
Temperature and Humidity Levels
Extremes and fluctuations in temperature and humidity can cause damage due to the expansion and contraction of the wood and fabric components of the painting. Wood and fabric absorb moisture which causes them to swell on humid days and, conversely, shrink on dry days. Ink, however, is not as resilient and can crack and flake off as a result of expansion and contraction of the underlying wood and fabric structure. These dimensional changes can cause the canvas to become slack and sag during the winter months.
Most canvas paintings or Gicleés are secured to a wooden frame that is commonly referred to as a stretcher or strainer. Stretchers are equipped with expandable corner joints that can be adjusted to insure that the painting remains taut. The joints can be expanded by driving small wooden wedges into the interior corners of the stretcher at the back of the painting. This procedure is commonly referred to as "keying out" a painting. Paintings should not be keyed out during the winter months when humidity levels are low. The increased tension caused by keying out may cause the painting to tear as the wooden stretcher expands during the humid spring and summer months.
Nancy J. T. Massoll
Fine Original Oil Paintings/Gicleé Images
Milford Michigan 48381
248.684.2160
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