In 1995 I did an oil painting on paper called “Erin’s Airport.” It is one of my favorite paintings. The painting is small, and what I call a “between the window” size painting, it is 9″ x 12″ unframed. When I finally decided, late in 2014, to create a body of work that I would print, I ended up deciding to use “Erin’s Airport” as my starting point.
Erin’s Airport, painting, Mary Baker © 1995
The printing of the images almost the terminated the digital art project.
I found someplace in Newburyport that would do a giclee, pigment print for not too much money, so that I could see what I had. I had them print two images, fairly large, 18″ x 20.” The first printing was a disaster, the images were dark, muddy and a horrible yellow. They had another giclee printer, so we tried that. The digital images were just as bad–this time they were dark, muddy and had a horrible red hue.
I thought after 2 years of work that the digital project had come to a screeching halt, and I was beside myself.
What I found out to my dismay was that the printed image did not resemble what was on my computer in any way. And also, to my distress, I found that every printer was a little different, or very, very different. This was not like painting, where what you created was what you got. It was a very big “Yikes!”
I called and talked to all sorts of photographers in Newburyport and elsewhere, because I figured they must have the same problem. And I got referred to Barry Kaplan at The Finer Image down in Danvers. And Barry saved the digital project.
Pig and Apple Tree, digital image, © Mary Baker (DRAFT)
Barry spent a long time with me, and we printed off images and they were dark and muddy, and I was not happy. And on a fluke, Barry printed one of the images much lighter, and I had another “eureka” moment.
The images are printed on beautiful, acid free, thick watercolor paper, and when they were printed lighter, I realized I could draw on them with Prismacolor (which is a waxed based colored pencil that I have used as a professional artist for decades), make the color exactly the way I wanted it, which is much brighter than the printed version. And they would look very similar to the way the images looked on my computer.
The Prismacolor also gives the images depth, which they did not have just with just pigment prints (this is coming from a painter’s perspective) . The process feels more like creating a painting or a drawing than just a printed image.
And using the Prismacolor pencils on the skies also helps soften the banding, an issue that I had been working on, that was much improved, but that hadn’t yet been totally perfected.
Boston Road, digital image, © Mary Baker (DRAFT)
I also changed the proportions and the size to be the same size and proposition as “Erin’s Airport” painted in 1995, 9″x 12″. So, on this page there are two of the images. THEY ARE NOT FINISHED, this is a work/project still very much in progress. These two images are just to give an idea of what the new images in this digital project look like. I haven’t decided on the price, or how big a run (at this point I can’t imagine doing more than one, because they take such a long time). All of this is still to be determined.
And at the bottom of the post, is a photograph of 7 of the images that have been printed, that are lined up along my studio floor, so that I can get a sense of how they work together, and what images to create next. This is the process that I would use if I was creating a new body of work that were paintings.
And as of July 2015, that is the state that this new digital art project, that was started in December 2012. And I think I know where I’m going next, I hope that I can create 13 more images, and to try and have a cohesive body of 20 digital-prismscolor works of art. But, after two and a half years, who knows–however, I am expectant.
Digital images along my studio floor © Mary Baker
