Wildlife Art by Acree Giclée-quality Prints: The Printer, Inks and Paper

Background

As we have developed this website, we have recognized the need to include a statement on the paper,inks and printing of the giclée prints. After pondering on this for some time, it occurred to me that most of people reading this would not be very up-to-date (as I was not too long ago) about the various options for paper, inks and this new term, “giclée printing”. So, I am going to retrace my learning process to explain why and how we do giclée prints.

First, let me back-track about 40 years ago. During the period of my life when I was painting animals (in watercolors and oil), I had trouble getting the eyes just right. So this time around, it is my intention to truly improve my drawing ability, especially in portraying realistic eyes. So, I have been studying everything available on how to draw eyes. Most of the information available pertains to drawing human eyes. Since human eyes have basically the same structure as animal and bird eyes, I have had to learn how to draw animal and bird eyes by studying human eyes.

By the way, it is imperative that the eyes of the subject in the drawing or painting be as perfect and realistic as possible, because in the animal and bird world (as well as in our human world) most of the interaction between two individuals is “eye to eye.” I think eye-to-eye contact is even more important in the interaction between animals and humans since there are limited ways to communicate our intentions, ideas or wants with sound. (As an interesting aside, the owners of PrideRock Wildlife Refuge request that visitors not wear sunglasses since it disturbs the animals not to be able to see the visitor’s eyes. I suppose, to the animal the sunglasses have the same effect as we humans experience in dealing with another human who is wearing a mask.)

I nearly always draw the eyes in in one of my wildlife art drawings first. If the eyes are not “alive,” I start over with a clean piece of paper. It takes me about a week to plan and do a drawing so I don’t want to wait and do the eyes last and then maybe have to throw a week of work away because I can’t make the eyes look right.

So, the drawing of the eyes and the duplication of the drawing of the eyes on the print, to be as near as possible to the original drawing, has everything to do with the evolution in the search for the best paper, inks and printing process for my prints. In this search, I have tried many types of paper and printing processes. It has been a long process to get the right combination of printer, inks and paper so that the eyes in the prints are as ‘alive” as they are in the original drawing.

Giclée Printing

As the quality of my drawings have improved (and therefore my aspirations) I have come to the conclusion that the prints of the drawings should be made with the best quality digital printers, the best and longest lasting inks and the best available fine art papers. The prints should meet the qualification of being determined “giclée prints.”.

So, just what are “giclée prints”?

During this process of searching for the right paper and printing process, I kept coming across the term “giclée prints.” This term generally indicated that the prints were of the finest quality. The word “ giclée” is not in any of my dictionaries. There seemed to be as many definitions of the word as there were people that I asked for a definition.

The consensus for the definition seems to be as follows: The word “ giclée” is a French word meaning to spray from a nozzle. Therefore the term, as it is used in art, in America, is really a generic term meaning something that was duplicated using a high quality digital printer that has many nozzles to mix and spray high quality inks onto various surfaces with almost exact duplication of the original. Duplications, or prints, can be made on canvas for oil paintings, on watercolor paper for watercolor painting and on various kinds of other papers for drawings of all kinds. The high quality digital printers, the special inks and the fine art quality printing materials required for giclée printing are all very expensive.

The Printer

The printer I use is an Epson Stylus Pro 4880 digital printer. This printer uses eight ink cartridges. It not only has matte black ink, it also uses Light Black and Light Light Black inks, which is very helpful in duplicating the fine nuances of the shades of grey for the iris in the eyes of the animal in the drawing. It has resolution capability up to 2,880 dots per inch (dpi). My giclée prints are printed in excess of 720 dots per inch (dpi). As a comparison, the image on your computer screen is generally less than 100 dpi, newsprint is 150 to 200 dpi and pictures in high quality magazines are printed at 300 dpi. There are 180 nozzles for each of the eight ink cartridges.

The Ink

The inks used are Epson Ultrachrome K3 high density pigment inks. Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks have improved print permanence characteristics that provide lightfastness ratings of up to 108 years for color and over 200 years for black and white under rigorous industry accepted display conditions. Print permanence ratings are based on accelerated testing of prints on specialty media, displayed indoors, under glass. Actual print stability can vary due to printer, media, display conditions, light intensity and atmospheric conditions.

The Paper

The prints are printed on Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art archival quality paper. This paper is 100% cotton hot press for long term durability. It is acid, lignin and chlorine free and pH buffered to preserve fine art. The paper’s thickness is 15 mil, the base weight is 250 grams/square meter, the ISO Brightness is 90% and Opacity is 98%.

The "Eyes" Have It

After much experimentation, I've found the right combination of printer, ink and paper to recreate animal eyes with gilcée printing. Even I have a hard time distinguishing between the original drawing and the giclée print, particularly in the critical area of the eyes of the animal.