What a giclée print is, and how the editions work

I print every edition here at the atelier, or at KKV where I run the printshop. A giclée (pronounced zhee-clay) is the print technique; an edition is how many exist and on what terms.

What is a giclée print?

A giclée is a fine art print made on a giclée printer, which sprays fine droplets of pigment ink onto archival paper. It is also called an archival pigment print. I print on a Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 at the atelier and a large Epson SureColor P20500 at KKV. The obvious difference is size, but each has its own strengths, and I choose between them depending on how I want to realize the work. The pigment inks and acid-free papers hold colour for generations, without the fading of a dye-based photo print, and every edition I print is signed and built to last.

So a giclée and an archival pigment print are the same thing, named for two different rooms: collectors and printers say giclée, conservators say archival pigment print. It is not a poster reproduction and not a one-off original either; it is an original image realised as a fine art print, signed by my hand.

A giclée builds its colour the way the pointillists did. The giclée printer lays down countless tiny dots of pigment ink, and the eye mixes them on the surface rather than mixing them on a palette. Optical mixing like this holds a light that hand-mixing on a palette loses, whereas blending pigment together dulls it by subtraction. So the print can reach a chroma I could not reach by hand. I need to push chroma to eleven to actually feel the difference, to take bigger leaps on the spectrum, and the giclée is the tool that lets me get there.

What is the difference between an open edition and a limited edition here?

An open edition is not capped at a fixed number, so it stays available rather than selling out by design. A limited edition is printed in a set quantity, then closed once that number is reached or when I decide. I publish both open and limited editions directly to collectors. Both use the same papers, the same pigment inks, and the same printing standard.

It is a question of availability; how the work is made does not change between them. An open edition stays printable as long as the series is open; a limited edition seals at its set number. Once a print reaches you, both are made to last.

How long will a print last?

An archival pigment print from the atelier holds its colour for generations, with the makers' lightfastness ratings putting it well past a hundred years. The inks are pigment, not dye: pigment inks such as Canon Lucia Pro II and Epson UltraChrome, matched to each work so colour bonds to the surface and resists fading. The paper is acid-free, from makers such as Hahnemühle and Awagami. It lasts longest kept out of direct sun, and behind UV-filtering glass on the art-glass frame variants.

I choose the paper per image, not by default, and that choice carries the longevity. There is more on the surfaces I use, and how to frame for them, in the substrate guide and the framing guide.

What is an artist's proof?

An artist's proof, marked AP, is a small number of prints set aside from the main numbered edition. By tradition they are the artist's own copies. I keep some and offer others to collectors, and I state the number of proofs when an edition is released, so the full edition is clear from the start. Because there are so few, collectors often prize them.

The edition mechanics sit underneath the work, not in front of it. They are how a print holds its terms: a fixed surface, a fixed standard, and a number that holds from the day an edition opens. The open editions in Loved by Collectors are printed this way on Hahnemühle German Etching, and the same standard carries across the FIGURES works and the rest of the active streams. For why the colour is built the way it is, see chromatic pressure.