Reproductions of wooden art???

Hi, I am a wood marquetry (inlay) artist.

My work is 2-D.

I see painters at art fairs selling reproductions of their originals, matted and ready to be framed, at a much lower price point than their originals are in.

I have wished that I could also sell reproductions, but it always seemed like a print of wooden artwork would look flat and loose the depth and warmth that wood has. I doubted that anyone would buy a print of a wooden picture since a glossy print would look strange and unnatural.

Then I found out about giclee' and thought that maybe printed on textured paper it might look ok.

I wanted to get objective advice from those who know the business, so this group seemed the best source...

Here are some examples of my work:

Notice that a critical part of my work comes from using woods with prominant grain patterns and using those patterns to emulate the element of the picture it is representing.

In person, these woods have a luster and depth to them that no print could possibly reproduce. But, as you can see from these photos of the work, they are still interesting.

So, my questions are:

1) Do you think that prints of wooden pictures can sell?

2) Can you make a good giclee print from a digital photograph file, or would I have to have it scanned?

(Many of these marquetry pictures are 22x28 or 18x24 and I was only thinking of making the prints 8x10 - no bigger)

3) One of the drawing points of my art is that no two pictures can ever be the same and I don't make more than 8 of any design... Will making prints dillute the exclusivity of my art? Does keeping the reproductions limited to only 8x10 in size help with maintaining the prestige of my original works?

Thanks for any advice you can give...

Chip

Battle Creek, Michigan

Chip, your wood pieces are so extraordinarily beautiful, I would tend to stick to your marvelous talent. I've seen others that do marquetry and yours is so far above others I've seen. All natural, no stains, OMG it is beautiful. If this was my decision I would look into doing what Ray just suggested, and more of the little stuff like your butterflies for the lower price points. I think you saw how well those went over last weekend.

I can understand your inquiry into photography as the pictures you present of your work are themselves works of art. So, I'll try to objectively answer your questions.

1) Yes, pictures of your art would likely sell. But is that what you really want to do? Patrons entering your booth are drawn in by the warmth of your woods and the fine detail you painstakingly put into them. How many photographers are at each show? What is your competition at each show? I think ones drawn to your booth are pulled in because of the art work of the wood, not the subject alone. Keep in mind that in entering most shows, you would have to jury into two categories.

2) Definately use a digital camera. However in my opinion you should not go with glossy. I have found my best results with the Epson Printers and Epson Ultra Premium Luster paper. It really seems to offer a better depth/color gamut which is what you'd need to capture the grooves and characteristics of your inlay. Most folks who do not do photography for a living don't know some basics, thus everyone & their brother think if they purchase a camera with 10+ megapixels, they too can make some bucks. It's not the megapixels. It's the lens and the lenses are quite pricey. You know my detail.... Hands down my older images taken with a 6 megapixel Canon and the Canon L Series lens will out perform a typical point & shoot 10 megapixel camera any day. Just thought if you want the best result, you'd want to look into what will give those photos a chance at making your images worthy of your beautiful marquetry.

3) IF you expand to photographs, I would think the optimum size would be the larger sizes - similar to the sizes of your artwork. The larger sizes would offer a better viewpoint of the inlay.... you know.... us old people can't see small stuff anymore.... geez I love my wide screen tv!

4) I know.... there was no 4, however.... additional thoughts..... I sell fine art notecards of my images at my local gallery... they do well. I used to take them to some of the shows. Then I realized my notecards were selling quite well (at $3 each) and the sales of my 5x7 matted to 8x10 (at $20 each) began to take a nose dive. Duh..... I was a newbie back then. Patrons interested in the 5x7 matted to 8x10 are generally the ones who love the image so much, or it reminds them of a place in time, they desire to have that image in their lives (home or office). It didn't matter if it was matted or if it was a note card they could take home & frame as they were similar in size. Needless to say - I don't take my note cards to shows anymore.

I kinda think you will have a similar result selling photographs.
So bud - my thoughts of the evening. I'm pulling an all nighter matting & framing then leaving in the morning for a show in Door County. So forgive me if I mentioned more than you were looking for. You can always call me if I can help you in any way. Be glad to take some photos for you with my high end equipment and print them so you can determine which way to go. Have a safe weekend.

Replies

Linda Anderson May 27, 2010 at 11:14pm

Chip, your wood pieces are so extraordinarily beautiful, I would tend to stick to your marvelous talent. I've seen others that do marquetry and yours is so far above others I've seen. All natural, no stains, OMG it is beautiful. If this was my decision I would look into doing what Ray just suggested, and more of the little stuff like your butterflies for the lower price points. I think you saw how well those went over last weekend.

I can understand your inquiry into photography as the pictures you present of your work are themselves works of art. So, I'll try to objectively answer your questions.

1) Yes, pictures of your art would likely sell. But is that what you really want to do? Patrons entering your booth are drawn in by the warmth of your woods and the fine detail you painstakingly put into them. How many photographers are at each show? What is your competition at each show? I think ones drawn to your booth are pulled in because of the art work of the wood, not the subject alone. Keep in mind that in entering most shows, you would have to jury into two categories.

2) Definately use a digital camera. However in my opinion you should not go with glossy. I have found my best results with the Epson Printers and Epson Ultra Premium Luster paper. It really seems to offer a better depth/color gamut which is what you'd need to capture the grooves and characteristics of your inlay. Most folks who do not do photography for a living don't know some basics, thus everyone & their brother think if they purchase a camera with 10+ megapixels, they too can make some bucks. It's not the megapixels. It's the lens and the lenses are quite pricey. You know my detail.... Hands down my older images taken with a 6 megapixel Canon and the Canon L Series lens will out perform a typical point & shoot 10 megapixel camera any day. Just thought if you want the best result, you'd want to look into what will give those photos a chance at making your images worthy of your beautiful marquetry.

3) IF you expand to photographs, I would think the optimum size would be the larger sizes - similar to the sizes of your artwork. The larger sizes would offer a better viewpoint of the inlay.... you know.... us old people can't see small stuff anymore.... geez I love my wide screen tv!

4) I know.... there was no 4, however.... additional thoughts..... I sell fine art notecards of my images at my local gallery... they do well. I used to take them to some of the shows. Then I realized my notecards were selling quite well (at $3 each) and the sales of my 5x7 matted to 8x10 (at $20 each) began to take a nose dive. Duh..... I was a newbie back then. Patrons interested in the 5x7 matted to 8x10 are generally the ones who love the image so much, or it reminds them of a place in time, they desire to have that image in their lives (home or office). It didn't matter if it was matted or if it was a note card they could take home & frame as they were similar in size. Needless to say - I don't take my note cards to shows anymore.

I kinda think you will have a similar result selling photographs.
So bud - my thoughts of the evening. I'm pulling an all nighter matting & framing then leaving in the morning for a show in Door County. So forgive me if I mentioned more than you were looking for. You can always call me if I can help you in any way. Be glad to take some photos for you with my high end equipment and print them so you can determine which way to go. Have a safe weekend.
Ray Mosteller May 27, 2010 at 9:31pm

My recommendation would be to do "stack cutting" of all your components. Even then all your pieces are original but you can save substantial labor by just eliminating the repetitious cuts. Just use double sided tape to secure 5-8 or even 10 pieces of sequenced match veneer. Cut through the entire stack and you have 5-10 components with a single cut.

I don't see where giclee reproductions would add any value.

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