Buying Limited Edition Prints: What You Need to Know | NZ Fine Prints

What You Need to Know About Buying Limited Edition Art Prints

If you’re looking into buying a limited-edition print, whether you’re starting out your collector’s journey or are just really interested in purchasing a specific piece, edition info may not be the first thing you think about. Of course, if you have your heart set on a particular piece which you know you love, these details might not change your mind. However, knowing a piece’s edition info not only gives you a greater appreciation for the piece; it also gives you a clearer understanding of the piece’s value, the artist, and of the art market in general. Not sure how to go about buying limited edition art prints? Here are the important factors you will want to consider.

 

Edition Value

Many pieces of art—whether prints, photography, or sometimes even sculptures—are created in runs. These are multiple original artworks (not a reproduction of an original artwork) using printmaking techniques such as etchings, lithographs, etc. Even though many prints of the piece are made, they are counted by collectors and historians as ‘first edition’ artworks if they are part of a particular set. So, while a piece may not be completely one-of-a-kind, it is still considered unique or rare as part of an original run of prints. These limited-edition groups of works often retain their value very well, as artists usually destroy the materials needed to create extra copies that are exactly alike, such as photo negatives. That said, popular art can be re-printed for second or third edition runs, or even more if demand is high. These limited editions can also be worth more than a standard replication of a piece.

 

Print Number

Print Number Example (8/75)

Given that editions get less valuable as they go on—first editions are more valuable than second editions, etc.—many assume this also extends to the number of the print. This is the number given to a piece to identify it within the edition. For example, if there are 20 copies in an edition, your piece may be labelled 5/20, or 13/20, or even 1/20. Contrary to popular belief, however, this number doesn’t impact the value as in general modern printmaking techniques don't wear out soft metal plates etc, which resulted in later prints being of lesser quality. In fact, most artists number pieces randomly, not in the order that they’re printed. Sometimes, the end of the scale (20/20 in our case) can be more expensive, but this is only because galleries tend to list limited edition prints in numerical order. As these run out and stocks run low, demand can lead to higher prices.

 

Artist Proofs

Limited edition pieces usually also come with artist proofs; look for ‘AP’ or ‘A/P’ in the edition info.

Mickey to Tiki (Reversed) by Dick Frizzell, featuring artist proofs

Other kinds of proofs exist too, which are provided by the printer, but artist proofs are more common. Artist proofs are popular at New Zealand Fine Prints because these are the first prints to be made, and any adjustments to the printing process are made by the actual artist working on these prints. The proofs themselves can be highly collectable—some of them might have notes or marks made by the artist, and this can make them much rarer and more unique.

 

Explore the world of art today

If you’re interested in edition info, your best course of action is to talk to the gallery or printmaker selling the prints. Here at New Zealand Fine Prints, we have a range of contemporary collectable ltd edition prints, alongside antique and rare pieces as well as our range of canvas prints, giclee fine art prints, and more, and we’re happy to answer your questions about the differences between all the different kinds of prints that we stock, whether open or limited edition. To find out more, get in touch with us, shop New Zealand’s largest collection of prints online today!

Ends of lines - editions about to sell out

What is our Endangered Prints gallery all about?

When customers were first able to buy prints online from NZ Fine Prints back in 1999 one of the first galleries we created almost on a whim (and definitely with a whimsical name) has become one of the most frequently visited pages at Prints.co.nz - up there with NZ's currently top selling prints and what's new most months in page views.  It's rather odd name (endangered prints) has stuck so perhaps the high traffic to this collection is due to the puzzling listing on our galleries page being clicked on by curious first time visitors!

Quite simply the endangered prints gallery lets print buyers know which prints are in danger of selling out. 

When we sold through mail order catalogue pre internet this impending deletion/selling out was impossible to convey, so we would have to drop a print completely from our range if we forecast that there wasn't enough stock to cover sales expected for the length of time that the catalogue was current. 

Some customers find it curious that both limited and open edition prints can go out of print - and ask why can't we just print some more if the print is not from a limited edition?  So in this article we'll talk about how both kinds of prints become endangered and then at the end of the post you will find our list of prints that have made it onto this list over the past couple of months.  It's a cliche but true when we say to please buy now to avoid disappointment...

Limited Edition Prints

About to sell out - Tony Ogle's Anaura Bay print

Editions by their very nature are not going to be available forever.  NZ's most successful printmakers long term - for instance Tony Ogle, Dick Frizzell & Shane Hansen - keep a balance in the market between new artworks being made and older editions selling out.  This is a seperate issue from "edition size creep" where printmakers with sold out editions early on sometimes begin to increase edition sizes to a number that is simply too big for the New Zealand market to absorb over a reasonable length of time (in our view 2-3 years).  Top NZ printmakers like the artists above produce 2-5 new editions a year and sell out a similar number of earlier editions annually (see for instance a list of Tony's sold out editions by year here). This means the market for their work is kept in balance, preserving both the purchasers investment and keeping the artist's income at level that sustains their art practice.  This is not an artificial way of squeezing supply - making a large print takes weeks and even months after all - it just prevents an overhang of unsold prints developing over time if supply is greater than demand.

We have found that there is a U shaped demand for original limited edition prints.  There is high demand at the beginning, collectors of an artist's work are keen to add the new print to their collection, sometimes a scramble to secure a favourite edition number from the edition and simply the fact that you can be the first to have a cool new print on your wall drives early sales.  In the middle of the sales cycle print sales will settle down to a regular (and surprisingly steady) monthly sales figure until around 80% of the edition is sold out.  Then demand rises steeply, higher than at the beginning of the limited edition sales cycle, as buyers who have been pondering a purchase are forced to make up their minds and the very fact that this edition is proving it will sell out brings the more financially minded collector to the party.  When we are down to less than 5% of the edition being available the print goes into the endangered gallery.  Some artists increase the price as the edition starts to sell out too!  Knowing which prints are going to sell out creates real value for our customers and we are adding new limited edition prints to the endangered gallery every few weeks. 

Open Edition Prints

Reproduction prints also sell out.  Although technically they can be re-printed there are actually a host of reasons why this may not happen with a particular image. In no particular order...

1. Most people who want a print of painting x by artist y now own the print and it is not economic to re-print again. The NZ market is tiny, short print runs are the order of the day.  However printed offset a print may still be printed in a run of 300+ prints.  Selling one a week for six years will probably meet the demand for a reproduction of a painting by most NZ artists.  
2. The artist's contract with a publisher has expired, not been renewed or suddenly ended in acrimony!  Commercial publishers pay artists a royalty on each print sold (not the number printed), traditionally these were offset prints done in longish runs (up to 1000) and contracts stipulated that the publisher could keep selling prints until all physical stock was sold. However with digital (or print on demand) production when the contract (between 1-3 years) comes to an end for whatever reason the tap turns off pretty quickly.  We might have just one print left - or a pile on the shelf if it's a good seller - but either way we'll put the image into the endangered collection as we can't re-order it anymore.  This doesn't mean that the prints are suddenly more valuable, collectable etc, we are just signalling to print buyers that this image is about to go out of print - just like a book - and won't be available again unless it's on the secondary market (eg Trademe or auction).  It usually won't be available again and even in the rare cases the same image is re-printed later by another NZ publisher the format can change significantly between printings. For instance Mickey to Tiki has been printed in four different iterations, all in slightly different sizes and on changeable paper stock since it was first printed by the Christchurch Art Gallery from a print in their collection, followed by Image Vault (who dropped the 5/50 edition number that had been on the original print and was fatefully included on the initial reproduction), then Dick's World (they added the title and artist in the Frizzell font below the image and changed to a lighter paper stock) and soon it will be published by 100 Percent NZ as an A2 poster.
3. We lose touch with an artist.  Yes, this happens even in the age of Facebook and LinkedIn!  We might purchase from our less mainstream suppliers as little as once a year, then when we re-order the artist has retired, moved or even passed away.  Then all the prints we have left from this artist are moved into the endangered category. 
4. Publishers and distributors close down.  In just the last couple of years NZ has lost Thorndon Fine Prints and Stanford Arts.  We try and buy at least a couple of years supply of stock if we know this is about to happen but eventually we start to run out and the prints go onto the endangered list. Sometimes an artist whose work has been distributed by another company (like Timo) will get in touch, other times we just have to delete the print from our catalogue if we can't find a contact (we'd love to hear from you Ingrid Banwell).
5. A self-published artist changes their mind about having prints made.  When a visitor to an artist's studio likes a painting but doesn't actually want to buy it a polite way to say no is for the prospective purchaser to say "if only there was a print of it,  then I'd buy one of those instead".  A few people saying this does not mean that there is demand large enough to make a print run viable. An artist can produce a few (expensive due to the small print run) test prints and find that these do not sell as fast as they expected.  The price is too high and their work perhaps not well known for a visitor to NZ Fine Prints to search for them by name.  Unless the subject has a wide appeal a print can get lost amongst 2500+ titles in stock and the artist loses heart and doesn't continue beyond the few prints initially sold.  Not all artists are as downcast as one who asked us to withdraw stock in July (despite us still having a few prints to sell) and then delete his name from our catalogue as "I have had a hard time being an artist and I don't think I will go down that line too often now.  I am so sorry but it is art that does not like me."!
6. The print is deleted by the publisher for unknown reasons.  This is frustrating for us, particularly if the print is a good seller.  For non-NZ artwork we can usually find another supplier eventually, for instance we are out of Durer's "Hare" and Breughel's "Tower of Babel" after our Italian publisher deleted these ever popular prints from their catalogue but we should be able to substitute these with the same image from a publisher in the UK shortly.   For a NZ artist this is usually the end of the road - however we will actually publish a print ourselves if we think that something should be available even if it is not a mainstream commercial print (eg C.F. Goldie's famous portrait "A Good Joke" or Colin McCahon's key work "Northland Panels").
7. The print is no longer available in all formats.  This is becoming an issue, an

   

   Canvas art print no more - paper version only

   artist may withdraw a print on canvas, but keep a print on fine art paper in production.  For instance painter Graham Young's kiwiana scenes such as his popular print of Auckland's Garnet Rd Dairy will only be available on paper going forward (despite the canvas version selling 10 to 1 compared to the paper version). We wonder if this is due to artists whose original paintings do not sell for much more than a stretched canvas print finding the competition from virtually indistinguishable reproductions a tough sell - particularly if they work with acrylic paints as they are really hard to tell apart from a printed reproduction.

Here is the list of prints that have had to be added to our endangered gallery over July and August.  The number of prints available to buy is the quantity we had in stock at 24 August 2016.  Link now broken? The print has sold out. 

Garnet Rd Dairy Canvas Print 10 

NZ Army Knife (NZAK) by Matt Moriaty 1

Anaura Bay by Tony Ogle 1
Goldie Print "The Widow" 3
"Haka" by Doug Ferris 1
"My Land" by Jane Puckey 3
Graveyards surf break by Peter Lambert 1
"Bather 1" by Barry Ross Smith 1
Kokako by Jo Simon 1

KUPU - Word prints by Weston Frizzell

Kupu Print by Weston Frizzell

"Kupu" Maori noun. Definition/translation into English "Word".

In 2009 Weston Frizzell began exploring and remixing the iconography of NZ fine art and popular culture into the letter series, a suite of prints that rearranged letters appropriated from iconic NZ artworks by artists such as Colin McCahon and brands, for example Watties and L&P.  The first word prints produced were those perceived by the artists as the most prominent in the kiwiana genre of decorative art, Aotearoa, Aroha and Home.

For the second series of word prints the initial intention was to create artworks montaging images of the letter paintings to form a series of words specific to the location of each destination of a touring show.  Taupo was the first of this series (in an edition of 10 that has now sold out).  The release of today's suite is arranged around a choice of letters specifically restricted to those of the written Maori language again with visual subject matter limited to NZ only. The prints are "Kupu", "Mate", "Pakeha", "Kapow" and "AEIOU".

Working backwards from the answer, Weston Frizzell conceived print designs that combine letters from a painted series. The individual letters are realised as 800 x 1200mm painted artworks, then images of the completed paintings were digitally captured, and the files assembled to create the final digital master files. Weston Frizzell regard the final work as not derivative of the painting process. The inverse is true. The paintings are regarded as artifacts of the creation of a digital print!

Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston signing the new prints
at their Auckland studio

Who is Weston Frizzell? We have written before about differentiating your Frizzells, but in essence Weston Frizzell is the collaborative identity of artists Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston. An experiment in the subversion of brand management theory that has evolved into a successful and frequently controversial art identity (see for example the controversy over their Auckland Supercity logo or Weston Frizzell ask "Who are the real terrorists?"), Weston Frizzell occupy a cleverly conceived niche that is now well established on the NZ fine art stage.  

All of the Kupu work can be seen at the touring exhibtion of Weston Frizzell prints and paintings produced by Th'ink and The Area, check the show out in Wellington at Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba St 29 July - 4 August 2013 and at the International Visual Methods Conference at Victoria University 2 September to 6 September.  Kupu moves to Auckland at Augusto, 90 Wellesley St 20 August to 25 August and then onto Melbourne at Second Story, 159 Sackville St, Collingwood 23 September to October 6th.

Artist Print or Reproduction Print? Spotting the difference in the era of Digital Printmaking

Are Prints by Digital Printmakers Reproductions or Original Artists' Prints?

Prints created on a computer or printed using an inkjet printer (the giclee process) can sometimes be classified as an "original" or "artists" print, just like a print made using a more traditional process such as etching or handmade silkscreens.  We agree with artist David Hockney who says bluntly "the computer is just a tool" and exhibits inkjet (or giclee) prints drawn on a graphics pad because clearly the image only exists in printed form, there is no "original" therefore it is an original work of art (in multiple form).

However many high priced digitally produced prints are not original prints, they are (albeit very high quality) reproductions.

When giclee/digital prints first appeared the high cost of materials and hardware created a blurring of the price signal differentiation between artists prints and reproduction prints. The print buyer was also paying for a higher quality product than an offset print (in terms of longevity of inks, colour fidelity and the option of reproduction onto canvas as well as fine art paper) but the prices for early digital prints were often further amplified by the premium for a more exclusive reproduction, the infiintely flexible "limited edition" being exploited by early adopters of the giclee printing process who were reproducing paintings.

Original digital print by NZ printmaker Alec Tayler

High prices being asked for  reproduction giclee prints has made the path for acceptance of pioneering digital printmakers like NZ's Alec Tayler just that much tougher. Tayler's work passes all the tests for an original artists' print but at $350 (for an edition of 180) they are still priced below some reproduction prints of a similar size.

There used to be an obvious distinction between prints created by hand (original prints) and prints made by machine (reproduction) and some straightforward tests for informed buyers to classify the value and rarity of a printed artwork they were purchasing.  But our conclusion is that the advent of digital printmaking processes is making some of the previously useful rules of thumb for making the distinction between "artists prints" and "reproduction prints" less useful and possibly obselete.


Why doesn't NZ Fine Prints call reproductions of other artworks "reproductions" and reserve the term "print" for original artists' prints, produced digitally or otherwise?

This writer has previously been taken to task for New Zealand Fine Prints' policy of calling copies of artworks in other media (such as oil paintings or watercolours) "prints".  For instance Kerikeri printmaker Mark Graver took exception in both an article in the Artists Alliance Magazine #76 and in his book "Non Toxic Printmaking" (you can read a copy of his article here) when he was told by me in an email exchange that he was ‘fighting a losing battle’ in terms of trying to educate the public, and that ‘the terms art print and art reproduction, even poster are seen as pretty much interchangeable by the general public’.

Our response is that because the terms are used interchangeably it does not make sense from a business perspective to fight this battle.  Our artists and publishers rely on us to get sales and we operate in a competitive marketplace. Mercedes tried for years to promote "pre-owned cars" but nobody was looking for them, they now call them "used cars" like everyone else.

In our catalogues we have reproductions alongside screenprints or giclee prints next to limited edition reproductions of antique prints if they have a common theme or topic as we believe clear labelling, detailed descriptions and expert articles in NZ Art Print News will keep print buyers educated and informed.

"Cracker Biscuit"
Screenprinted reproduction of a
 painting by Michael Smither

[However as the series of prints by famous NZ artist Michael Smither we are cataloguing at the moment demonstrates classifying prints is still no easy task - Smither's range includes original prints AND handmade (screenprinted) prints that are based on original paintings].

As the shift to digital printmaking by fine art printmakers gathers pace it is more useful to ignore calls by printmakers like Graver for government regulation and to instead listen to his more sensible advice based not on regulating the process but on understanding the artist's intent. As Graver himself concedes "A Giclee… can be as much an original print as an etching or wood cut, it depends on the artist’s motive."

Stamp design to wall art (Part 2) - further discussion with artist Lester Hall

The release of historical NZ stamp designs (from the 1898 and 1935 pictorials), surprisingly effective in large wall art size - see our previous article "Postage Stamps to Wall Art" - prompted further discussion with artist Lester Hall about his groundbreaking "postage stamp" series of prints.  Back in June we had described how this controversial contemporary NZ print-maker used the conventions of postage stamp design to explore issues of Maori and Pakeha identity and that thanks in large part to his popularisation of the idea the postage stamp style print has become a "veritable trend" in NZ art.  

NZ Printmaker Lester Hall

We asked Lester Hall when he began to create prints that used the conventions of postage stamp design? Hall said that it was back in 2008 "I set several images first so they were in a context of stamps like any other set of stamps. The statement was about being Pakeha and I made a commitment to update the "Hories and Whities" series of diary pages I had done (in the late 80s and early 90s). These were an investigation into Being Pakeha." Hall said "The stamp style was my drawing a line in the sand, it says I am clear about the thoughts surrounding the images. Stamps were immediately historical in context. I shifted from diary pages which were from a place that was private and self analysing to stamps because stamps are statements, not questions." 

Talking to Hall it became clear that for this artist the referencing of postage stamps in his art was not just about designing each individual artwork to echo a stamp's design in isolation, but also to "insinuate the possibility of collecting". Hall said that beyond the obvious connotations of collecting prints "this collecting idea is about putting several important hypotheses together to form a philosophy."  With Hall agreeing that the format is becoming ubiquitous, (he says the stamp design is "losing its edge"), we asked Lester if there is scope to develop artistically within the stamp design theme? Some recent works such as Queenie are not strictly in the stamp format so is this design becoming restrictive in any way?  Hall said "First and foremost I am a social commentator so the artistic imperative comes a distant second to my narrative. I am moving in a sideways direction now, into book covers and posters but the subjects I create will be able to revert to stamp when I think it is important for the context of people already collecting stamps. Queenie is formatted into an Argentinean designed stamp and is exactly as that Victorian era stamp was created. That artist just thought outside the square so to speak."

"Poll Tax" Print from Lester Hall's Aotearoaland series
References postage stamp design & "Chinese Girl
in Yellow Jacket" by Vladimir Tretchikoff 

And what does Lester think of other NZ artists who are now also referencing postage stamp design? "Use a format by all means", he told us "but to imitate colour way, style and subject so closely - this is not derivative it is creepy!".  Of course an actual Lester Hall print is quite distinctive from the imitators copying old NZ stamps in mass produced frames, no other artist is creating such a coherent different series of artworks to stimulate and inform debate about the place of Pakeha in New Zealand.  As Lester says "The place of Pakeha in New Zealand is a complicated and evolving understanding. My subjects vary because of the lighter and darker sides of that setting. I create differing feelings of happiness or danger etc to draw in a wide audience and to ask people to be brave and think for a change and maybe speak about their desires and hopes and expectations. So where an image of the Buzzy Tiki can relax and draw in a mind living in a lighter World the devilish print of the Boogieman will find its way into the more brooding contemplative mind which peers deeper into the souls of man. The differences are driven by a desire to have a broad perspective and creating a deepening trust of the subject in us all."

So where is the art of Lester Hall headed now? "Fashion", he says "exists in all art and as it heads towards the darker and more morbid forms of the Victorian so will mine."

Lithographic stone discovered in NZ by early surveyors

SS Waipara loading lithographic stone in Pawa Rika Harbor./Abbey Rocks. N.Z. 

Harrison & Sons, Lith. St. Martins Lane, W.C. 

159 x 213mm. Lithograph in tints (EPNZ 766). 

The scarce print shown here illustrates one of the more interesting and lesser known adventures in early New Zealand printmaking. In the 1860s the Abbey Rocks, midway between the Paringa and Moeraki Rivers on the west coast of the South Island were discovered by two surveyors (Arthur and Docherty) to be of lithographic stone.

In the mid to late 19th century there was increasing demand for printing on NZ subjects beyond simple letterpress. News of the wars fought during the 1860s was crying out for illustration. Grayling's "The War in Taranaki" is notable for this period as it was printed locally rather than published in England and contained several pages of wood engravings. 

Within a very short time, however, there was a rapid increase in the number of presses operating in New Zealand. Population growth alone demanded the ready dissemination of news, and though letterpress was still predominant the majority of the pictures drawn, engraved and printed in New Zealand were lithographs.  According to Early Prints of New Zealand "lithography was a form of reproduction more easily learned than wood or metal engraving: provided the artist remembered to reverse his subject, or used transfer paper, the process was little more difficult than drawing on paper, and the equipment necessary was less complex and expensive for the printer."

A development company was launched, and a large sum of money spent on cutting and shipping several tons of the polished stone to London. Tests carried out there threw doubts on the quality of the stone, and later experiments nearer home, in the printery of Sands & McDougall of Melbourne, proved the stone to be full of flaws. At the time (1866-67) the Melbourne International Exhibition was open and had attracted several German printers. They were shown the Abbey Rocks stone, but were not prepared to use it, and the venture failed. 

The print shows the S.S. Waipara loading stone off the Abbey Rocks. The ship herself fared no better than the enterprise she is pictured in: a West Coast trader, she ran aground ten times and was finally wrecked in 1898. The print is undated, but shows the ship as she appeared between 1867 and 1871, when a third mast was added. 

List of sold out Tony Ogle editions since 2000

With an output of only 3-5 handmade editions annually Tony has not been very prolific despite a career spanning 30 years so far. We get lots of enquiries about whether particular Tony Ogle prints that no longer appear in Tony's collection at Prints.co.nz are still available.  Usually these are the result of people ogling (hee hee) a print they have seen that they would like to buy for themselves.  Unfortunately the answer is always no, because once an edition has sold out Tony never does another edition of the same print. Below is a summary for collectors by year of Tony's sold out editions from the last decade - it is safe to assume all prints dated before 2000 are sold out. 

2008
Fisherman's Cove

2007
Crimson Ridge
Matapouri Bach

2006
Tawharanui
Back Beach Bach
Days End

2005
Cathedral Cove Reserve

2004
Whale Bay Raglan
Red Couch' - Whangapoua Beach

2003
First Sight - Pohutukawa Point
Hahei Hideaway
Days End Te Henga
Kauwahaia Island & Erangi Pt O'Neills

2002
Rawhiti Coastline
Cabbage Trees - Waewaetoria Island
Hahei Pa & Islands

2001
Heaphy Track Nikau
Surf Check - Hot Water Beach
Ihumoana Island - Te Henga
Back to the Bach

2000
Great Barrier Summer
Century Agave
Piha Sunset

"Okiwi Crossing" Printmaker: Tony Ogle 600 x 360mm

All prints currently available from this talented NZ printmaker (including his latest releases in 2011) are listed in the Tony Ogle collection at NZ's specialist art print store.  The next edition to sell out will almost definitely be "Okiwi Crossing" (shown here), we have only two A/Ps (the rare artist proofs) left in stock today.

Prints by Greg Straight get NZ Fine Prints recommendation

NZ Printmaker Greg Straight

Pop Art Tiki by Greg Straight [Edition of 100]

Recently contemporary New Zealand printmaker Greg Straight (pictured left) was profiled by Kiaora magazine's Matt Philp (Straight's "Neon Tiki" graced the cover of the inflight magazine for Air New Zealand in June 2011). “Art and design used to be very clearly distinct but these days there’s far more of a crossover. I think my generation is more open to that. But fine art takes itself too seriously sometimes, which is why I like pop art. I love the idea of taking objects from everyday life and putting them in a gallery.”

Greg is at the forefront of the movement that is finally adding a contemporary urban sensibility into the visual arts in New Zealand.  “It’s a real challenge with kiwiana though, because everyone has had a stab at it,” he told Kiaora's Philp “You have to find ways to put a new twist on it and keep it contemporary. That might mean breaking the thing down into geometric shapes and using bold colours." 

Straight graduated from the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts majoring in print making.  A fine art printmaker who also works as a T-shirt graphic designer for streetwear brands such as Huffer and Federation Straight's artwork is an exciting melding of high art with NZ pop culture.

We are cataloguing Straight's first series of prints including "Pop Art Tiki" shown here and Greg Straight's prints wholeheartedly get NZ Fine Prints' "buy" recommendation for astute collectors building their hoard of contemporary NZ editions.

Otis Frizzell reveals his printmaking technique

Contemporary New Zealand print-maker Otis Frizzell recently gave a rare insight into his print-making process when he revealed the steps involved in creating his latest tiki series print, La Fiesta Del Tiki, as part of a "Visa Platinum people" promotion on Facebook.  Otis is one of NZ's most popular printmakers, both in his own right and in collaboration with his friend Mike Weston as the "art brand" known as Weston Frizzell (we have explained the differences between the artists Otis, Dick & Weston Frizzell in a previous article).

Otis Frizzell's initial drawing of a Tiki

In this article Frizzell describes how he begins making a print. "Everything starts out with a drawing. I've been working on a series of pinstripe Tiki stencils for a few years now and thought I'd try something different. I love Mexican folk art and wondered if I could fuse the decorative style of the Mexican sugar skulls with a broken down Tiki form." Shown here at right is a picture of the original tiki drawing that Frizzell worked up into the finished artwork.

Once Otis was happy with the design he tried a few colour variations because the sugar skulls are very colourful and ornate.  To make sure he gets the symmetry in his tiki series Otis revealed that "I often only draw half and when I reckon I'm there, I scan the drawings and flip them. It's worth noting that this is the only process I use my computer for. Everything else is hand done."

Actual stencil used in screenprinting process

When he's happy with the whole design Otis prints out the image to the size he wants the finished art to be and then the labourious task of breaking it down again colour by colour begins - essentially the artist has to trace over his entire drawing to make a stencil for each separate colour.  Once each colour has its own stencil (see picture at left of one of the actual stencils used to make La Fiesta Del Tiki) Frizzell does a test run - with spray paint! "That way" he says, "I can play with the colours and make sure it all works".

The actual screenprinting then begins, Otis says "I take each stencil and spray directly onto the film to make the screens (like I was saying, I like to keep it as hands on as possible). That way there are human imperfections on the screens.  When things get too perfect they lose the human touch. The final result is a beautiful edition of signed and numbered prints". To buy all prints available by Otis Frizzell, including the La Fiesta Del Tiki featured in this article please go to the Otis Frizzell prints collection at NZ's specialist art print store,  New Zealand Fine Prints.

Latest Tony Ogle Prints

Tony Ogle has released a new print, a large work of art called "Indicators - Raglan".  This is one of Ogle's surfing series of prints - the surf break at Raglan is world famous and is the first point of three, hence for surfers down the line looking up at the first point they can see the 'Indication" of larger waves coming which gave this print its name - 'Indicators". 

We asked Tony if his latest print (pictured above) was a conscious departure from his previous art.  He told us that "yes it is somewhat of a departure in style although I have been painting in a similar way using a very textured surface (hessian/jute) and painting highlights out of a black background to complete the work. So this print borrows from that technique - the subject was worked up larger in white on black painted jute to emphasize the texture and gritty feel which pertains to the wild beauty of the West Coast."  We then asked Ogle about the brooding, darker style of "Indicators - Raglan" and how he acheived this effect. Tony told us "When the black on white image was completed I had filmwork done and then proceeded to underlay the colour resulting in the finished print work. I have consciously  tried to capture the moody brooding aspect of the West Coast."

As an aside - Tony has also reviewed the prices for buyers of his prints back in early October.  Because of this we are going to be updating all the prices for Tony Ogle's prints, at the moment all of Tony's artworks are still for sale at the old price.

Printmaker Annie Smits Sandano told to boycott prints.co.nz

Auckland contemporary print-maker Annie Sandano is today under pressure from her high st galleries to stop promoting her original prints through www.prints.co.nz

This is the first time we have heard of conventional gallery owners pressuring artists to stop selling their work through companies like New Zealand Fine Prints that primarily sell New Zealand artworks online. Is this something to do with the recession squeezing conventional galleries paying those high st rentals to be in the right suburbs we wonder?

Many conventional New Zealand galleries have superb online stores, lots of artists now sell direct from their own websites and companies like New Zealand Fine Prints, TradeMe and Artfind have helped artists grow their sales enormously over the last ten years.

Times have changed and of course artists should be reaching the largest possible audience for their work using the internet.

We say lets see who can sell the most prints for our artists and we'll continue to focus on our customers rather than our competitors - as we know that's what generates ongoing sales in the long term!