Featuring some art prints from my Queen City Scenes, Heritage and Geo Modern collections:
A friend reached out about starting up a print business that would use digital printing to create work. Here are some of my thoughts tailored for the Cincinnati market:
Digital Printing
First, I think pursuing open-edition, digital printing is a great strategy. My biggest issue right now is having so much inventory.
Moo – I have not used them before, I have used Vistaprint but only for business cards
Seamless or Corporate Printing in Cincinnati: getting to know the printer and I feel you can spec some paper stock. They use higher-end Xeroxs.
Robin Imaging in OTR: Higher-end giclée prints
Jakprints: Cleveland based, great for prints and stickers
StickerMule: Great for stickers
Contrado: I've used them for print-on-demand garments and they have other housewares
Zazzle: I've used them for print-on-demand
Other strategies:
- Etsy: post images that are print-at-home
- Drop shipping:
- Printful: I have used them, they integrate into my Squarespace, but I am not blown away by their quality
- Gelato, Finerworks, ThePrintSpace, Giclee Today, and Prodigi are some I found via Google. Research and have a sample of your work shipped to you to see if you like the quality.
Print-on-demand and dropshipping will give you less share/royalties of the price BUT you get to do a lot less and have a lot less inventory on hand.
Idea:
With Claire coming from a background in the arts and printmaking, this product model might be interesting:
Original artwork $$$$
Limited-edtion, hand-printed $$$
Open edition, digital: $
This could be the same image. Ink & Craft did this. This way you could have the fulfillment of making art and producing work, having originals might allow you into more premiere events like but offering a product
Sales:
- Roughly 55% of my sale came from in-person events in my heyday
- 22.5% were from online sales
- 22.5% were from wholesale/consignment
Accounting/Business:
- I would recommend if you plan to scale up a business to start working with an accountant to track expenses
- I set up a business checking account so the sales and expenses were separate and easily trackable
- Consult with them about State Vendors license, or when the right time to have an LLC or acquire general liability insurance
- Inventory: work with them around any inventory or depreciated assets you may need to get started
Price:
- I started out matching market-rate for gig posters nationwide, you could do a comparative audit of other creatives/artists/makers you admire
- As I got into wholesale I would make sure my labor (time creating artwork), cost to print, cost of packaging would be covered in the first 50% of the price.
This also helped when working events, my labor and booth fees could be covered by the second 50%, or online where the website fee and potentially postage would be covered by that second 50%
Online Selling
What is the most successful selling avenue for you? Insta, Facebook or online? Or is it more local shows or retail? We are so curious about that, and are not sure if we should dive into one vs. another, or do a little of both to start.
- Squarespace: I've had my main online shop with them. I can create an Instagram/Facebook business page and integrate my shop into their developer/business portal
- Square: I used Square as my point-of-sale for a long time. I also really love them for inventory tracking. They also offer the ability to build a website that is an online shop.
Local Markets:
What are the ‘best’ local market/seller or events to be in, if that’s something you recommend?
- Crafty Supermarket: my best indoor show. It happens twice a year, May and Nov/Dec
- CityFlea: My best outdoor market
- OFFmarket: Has grown to be about as good as CityFlea.
- Art on Vine: Indoor in winter, outdoor in summer. A good place to gain experience; very opening and they help people get their start
Others: Westside Market, Westwood Art Show, The Market at Medpace,
Packaging:
- I use ClearBags for sleeves and backing to sell prints
- I use Uline for durable shipping materials like mailers and tubes
- Shippers: EcoEnclose, StickerMule, Packola, CustomPolyMailers look cool, I haven't used them yet
Consignment/Wholesale:
Have you gone the route of commission-based sales, like at coffee houses and other retail? Is that even a good way to go, in your opinion?
- I started with some consignment, I typically got a 60/40 split. When I got busy it was hard to track inventory and sales. I really liked working with Handzy, they were organized.
- I prefer wholesale, where I get 50/50 and sell the inventory for the store. This advantage is that it's on the store to move products and to buy work that will resonate with their customer base.
Subject Matter:
Do you have an option on themes/subject matter that really has pull? Do you think more artistic or unique/personal styles work as well? We love your Cincinnati prints, and were wondering how that’s worked for you and/or evolved over time.
- A long time ago I did my first show and I experimented with 4 different types of subject matter. The Cincinnati work came from some work I had done and from an authentic love for the city and its history. I gravitated to that because I was rewarded more by the customers.
- I would recommend having a personal ethos you develop over time, and using trends and the marketplace to stay relevant
Last year an image popped up that I had forgotten about: Georgia O’Keeffe’s “New York Night.” My Father-in-Law Dave gave me an Art Deco in America book and it was included in the works.
Inspired, I daydreamt what if I could look down Vine Street at Night, but from the vantage point of a bird’s eye view with Carew Tower in the foreground.
I used Google Earth to fly in and create the desired vantage point and started using ProCreate on the iPad to start illustrating my initial intent.
Planning to go into more detail or ownership of the illustration/image.
Aquatint etching with à la poupée inking experiment.
“Desales ar Dawn”
6” x 8”
Intaglio, 2023
I wanted to experiment with number 3 lithography crayons over spray paint aquatint and using timed biting to create an atmospheric scene. Looking to improve definition of Desales’s iconic steeple with future etching and more attention while inking the plate.
Many thanks to instructor Stephanie Berrie for the incredible instruction and sharing your passion for and knowledge of intaglio! And many thanks to Tiger Lily Press for providing the platform for continuing my print education!
Plein Air Study on iPad
Hopefully in the next year I will create a detailed etching of Cincinnati and Covington from the vantage point of Devou Park.
In January I went down to take reference photographs and to make a plain air study to make sure my eye would capture nuances in the moment.
Leap forward to June. Below you can see my progress — I’ve drawn for about 14 hours so far but I still have a lot to go!
I’ve been working on a graphite drawing. Dusting off my pencils and skills after learning a ton in Design Drawing during my first year in design school back in 1996.
Planning to experiment to see how the graphite texture screenprints.
This image was inspired by a 5mile walk last summer with my dog Kona, where we went through Newport and Covington then visited the Square during a Hip Hop concert. I love when downtown is full of people, arts and vibrancy!
I've been developing a new collection of work I'm calling "Queen City Scenes" — inspired by the long tradition of urban landscapes. The work will be into more fine arts than my typical graphic arts, still emphasising but not limited to printmaking.
I’ve been slowly building up some somewhat finalized artwork as well as some rough sketches. I’m experimenting with some scenes with dramatic skies or taking place during the day but I am also attracted to the drama of night scenes as well.
My initial process is inspired by photo journalism — finding reference photography by proactively scouting locations for dramatic and beautiful lighting. This comes rather easy as we go for walks with our family dog Kona and love to explore the riverfront and the parks on the surrounding hills.
“Covington Riverfront at Dusk” work in progress — using ProCreate on the iPad to illustrate an urban landscape. I plan to personally screenprint a 30” x 20” version.
I started work last August during my first visit to Detroit. I really enjoyed evening rides along their river walk then coming back to my hotel and cuddling up with my iPad. Drawing can be so relaxing and I should do more before bedtime.
Not quite finished yet, so far I’ve spent about 15 hours in the image, enjoying the shading.
“View from Devou” work in progress from June. Relaxed on a lovely family vacation to Red River Gorge by drawing a scene in Adobe Fresco on an iPad in the evenings and mornings.
I was inspired to work on a fun watercolor screenprinted monoprint after binge-watching episode of “Painting with John” and watching the watercolor spread.
Hoping to create a watercolor monoprint of this scene in the upcoming months as part of my Queen City Scenes collection
As a senior in High School I became more aware of a larger body of work that Warhol produced, from the early commercial work as well as the films. It’s safe to say there was an influence there and directed me towards a career in the graphic arts.
Recently I watched “The Warhol Diaries” on Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed viewing the progression of his career a little more in-depth with some insight from his personal point-of-view.
I want to note Warhol did publish many of his screenprints on his own, but also worked with a number of printmakers during his career. Working with Alexander Heinrici from 1974-1976 and then with Rupert Jasen Smith from 1977 until Warhol’s death in 1987.
This is an interesting video from Tate Britain following one artists method to reproduce Warhol’s work.
Some of the work-in-progress digital paintings and sketches in my ProCreate app.
Before embarking on this new collection and goal of “12 masterpieces” in 2022 I have been doing some electronic sketches and studies using the iPad and the app Procreate. Above are some of the sketches I have been producing over the winter.
I’ve been trying to get into the practice of documenting scenes and the effects of different times of day and the light, as well as the atmospheric gas affects of the clouds.
I’ve been also trying to get interesting vantage points and views of urban landscapes that might resonate with other people.
Once I build up this collection of subject matter and I plan to start experimenting with a variety of production methods:
- multicolor Serigraphs
- serigraph watercolor monoprints
- polyester lithography
- letterpress, magnesium plates
- woodcuts
- engravings (but need to teach myself)
- acrylic and oil paintings
- watercolor paintings (maybe studies)
- pen and ink drawings
The past few years I feel like I've been balancing commissions with maintaining the Cincinnati Heritage Collection. I have been experimenting here and there with styles and developing new collections.
I've settled on a new collection that feels less graphic arts and advertising based and more observational art prints of scenes. This new collection may still be based in Cincinnati, but it feels a bit more liberating and I enjoy capturing reference imagery and using printmaking to capture reality in a stylized manner.
The prompt of 12 in '22 is inspired
—a
that really started this current chapter of my career. In 2011 I felt very stagnant creatively, so I set the goal of creating 1 piece of artwork or creativity per week to re-inspire myself. With this new prompt of 12 in '22 I want to create 1 strong piece per month, and focus on quality of execution during the development of this new collection of work.
Last year I had the pleasure to develop a new piece experimenting in this new style to the Tiger Lily Press Calendar. I went to the Cincinnati Riverfront in the evening and photographed reference for a great cropping of 3 landmarks from our skyline that would fit into a 6" x 8" crop. I spent about 17-18 hours illustrating the scene, and about 16 hours printing 150 of the 3-color prints (what a long day!).
I'm planning to adapt this series to other mediums as well; for instance an idea for a woodblock of the riverfront at night (see below) and also to continue my work in Polyester Lithography as well.
One of the assignments for Jay Harriman's Intro to Polyester Lithography was for each student to create a self-portrait in the same size format, and we will print our collective prints onto sheets to create a group portrait.
For mine, I wanted to capture the many styles I work in, so I gridded my face and would apply mono-lineweight to some areas, halftones to others, realistic ball-point pen as well as a loose wash using carbon black acrylic paint.
The final effect is definitely kind of silly and maybe a little amateur-ish.
Below you can see an in-progress group portrait with four of the 7 artists having printed:
For years I have admired the work of Cincinnati artist Caroline Williams. Per pen-and-ink drawings as well as her engravings helped capture a Cincinnati transforming during the mid-twentieth century.
For this polyester litho plate I used a Bic ballpoint pen to create very small, gestural marks.
I started taking a polyester lithography class at Tigerlily Press. So for the class I drew this scene inspired by our Yosemite wedding many years ago:
The drawing was made with Sharpie on a polyester plate — the marker will attract ink while the wet polyester will not accept ink during the printing process.
Ugh, so I did some test prints and I think I was in a crabby mood. I started messing up, got in the weeds and went home to sulk. First print was okay, second some ghost fingerprints emerged, then the third print was really bad (I used a gel toothpaste to clean the plate and worried I messed up the image).
Capping off my trip to Michigan with a "crepuscule" or "silhouette" style drawing inspired by a morning walk along the Les Chenaux shoreline of Cedarville's bay. It was one of those Monet type of mornings.
I drew this with fellow artists Anissa Pulcheon and Wesley Ericson while we were waiting for our East Walnut Hills mural wall to dry from morning fog so we could start a day of mural painting.
I created an ink foreground separately from a graphite sky — I merged them in Photoshop to simulate how I might create a watercolor mono print with the design.
The beginning of October found me taking a short vacation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula — enjoying the great northern woods.
For my first Inktober drawing I created an overlapping motif of mushrooms that I imported and turned into this pattern repeat: