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Hey there, Mike! I’ve searched for and read your detailed and informative responses to other painting questions on the forum and, based on these, decided that my two listings are prints.
Of course I get a follow up question from a buyer that has me stumped! LOL
Here are my two listings:
Tall and skinny
Short and wideThe follow up question was based on the fact that these were framed back in 1977. My buyer wanted to know if they had print technology back then. Erm… ???
My listings have a couple close ups of the paintings, best I can get them. Would you be able to help with any follow up information, or was my assessment that these are prints accurate? I don’t really want to unpack the paintings as I think the 40-year old framing adds to the value. Tell me if I’m wrong? And thanks!
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Well here is some information for you.
The first and direct question is, yes, of course they had prints in 1977. They were mostly “offset lithographic reproductions” done by photographing the original and then creating 4 color halftone separations and printed in CMYK. This how all magazines and unlimited large prints were done. But, also NO, they did not have digital prints back then, no Giclée’s, no wide format printers. I think we all were using dot matrix printers back then, maybe only 9 pin. But if Offset Commercial print shops, the process of 4 color reproduction was strong and in its hay day.
So, you have a yes and no answer to your customers question and I think they would need to qualify “did they have print in 1977”?? What are they asking.
Now to your pieces. I surely hope you looked closely at those art pieces under strong magnification. If you say the image consisting of those small tiny “dots” – “Rosette patterned” dots, then you do have a reproduction of what I think is a [pastel drawing original. That waffle – textured paper is a giveaway. Highly embossed paper can be used for both water color and pastel BUT with a liquid like water color the liquid will “ooze” down into the lower regions of the paper. If you will look at some of the darker detail areas, the darker detail-highlights is only applied to the “top” surfaces of the textures. That indicates, to me, that a hard surface drawing tool such as a pastel stick, conte crayon like object was used to apply that dark detail. NOW the big QUESTION I stated above, if the original was a drawing, water color or even a mixed media combination of the two, if the image is comprised of 100% varying “dots” all over then it is a photo litho repro. But if there is not mechanical, structured dot pattern then you may have an original drawing.
If it is a pastel and the detail shows real color applied to a “textured” surface then what you may think or to the amateur, untrained eye may very well be a “dotty LIKE” texture that is imparted by the hard-pastel stick only applying color to the tops-high parts of the embossed textured paper.
So, I only have you word that you looked at the whole image, soft tones, mid-tones and dark shadow areas and can see the “rosette dot” pattern all over.
Now there is a litho repro technique whereby a printer will come back and do subsequent over lay colors of some solid areas. I used and developed a technique myself whereby I could use a silk screen process to simulate a plate etching by doing the 4-color process and then using 2 or 3 other press passes to over some solids. But certainly not 10, 15 or 20 press passes. Too costly for repro’s.
If again though, those large, very washed out pastel solid areas were done with powered pastel and finger blended pastel or with liquid water color they will be solid, you may have an original drawing, but if not and the original taken and then photographed, and you see in this case, white dots [another story for another time], it confirms again a litho photomechanical reproduction.
So, in summary, yes there was prints around in 1977. Since the invention of movable type and the Gutenberg Press about 1440 and the first printing of the Bible around 1454, there has been printing. Silk screen printing has been around for 600 years in the Orient in a slightly varied format that became patented in the US around 1900.
That takes care of here questions.
But do you have a pastel or mixed media original drawing, I can’t tell without seeing them up close and using my higher power scopes, which one also has a built in black light which also helps me determine a few things. One last thing to note, while observing all the colored areas, did you get a good close up view of the “signature”. If these were originals and signed then done as a photo repro at a later time, good chances are the printer knew he was creating “wall art decor” did a large, run of then and thus also photographed the signature and as a result that signature will be broken up and contain halftone dots also and printed right along with the image at the same press pass, all done in the 4-color process.So hopefully you have them identified correctly, if they are reproduced then the price is about right for wall decor repro’s if originals which I think they may be a mixed media, pastel, ink drawings you need a number one placed in front of the 44 and the 34 numbers.
Hopes this helps somewhat.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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Hello MDC Galleries,
I think many of us have found your posts on art to be very beneficial and informative. I was wondering if you would be okay with me copying all of your posts about art into one thread titled Selling Art under the main Selling on eBay forum so that anyone who has questions and/or would simply like to learn more about selling art would be able to easily find your posts.
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AdventureE: I would prefer that these posts stay here in SL for the time being. The main reason is that we are working on an informational web site that we are going to use to funnel traffic to our new e-commerce store online that is not an Ebay or Etsy store. It will be under our own domain name when finished.
I was planning on utilizing some of the questions an my replies on various art topics as original content in those new sites. I am afraid if the information ends up on Ebay’s main forums that it will get plagerized, sliced and diced and copied all over the place under others by line name. One of the new products we are creating is an e-guide to buying, identifying and selling original fine art online. So let’s just leave everything here for the SL members to enjoy for the time being and when the time is right I will re-post much of this and more on our informational site and have links to our new Shopify Store along with many of the prints and paintings in my portfolio’s for sale.
Also, here on SL is a place I choose to help those that have helped us and feel this is sort of our way of saying thank you and paying back, for what little it may be worth. But on Ebay that is not the case.
But thanks for your comments, it makes me feel good that the information is of some benefit.
Mike in Atlanta
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Oh. I think my wording was not clear. I did not want to bring anything over to ebay. I wanted to organize here for the SL members to make your knowledge easy to access for all of us SL participants. That is what I meant by creating a thread called Selling Art under the Selling on Ebay main forum thread which currently exists here on SL. I did not want to take it off of SL. I simply wanted to find a way for the SL members to access your knowledge base by putting it in one thread area titled Selling Art under the Selling on Ebay forum here on SL. This way, if any of us SL members needed a reference point we could just type something like Art in the SL search bar and have it come up instead of having to search through threads to find info about selling art.
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Good Morning:
I see what you mean now. The use of the word Ebay threw me into thinking you meant a forum on Ebay.
Oh sure, organizing here would be great. I have tried to find a spcific topic here on the Forum and while yes you can search a topic, it does come in the form of pages upon pages of posts that contains the search term but maybe not applicable.
Have at it. That would also help me for the time I need that content for my new site. That is one of the reasons I sign my posts mike at mdc galleries in Atlanta, so I will be able to search on that specific phrase and sort out all of my art responses.
Unfortunately I have only been using that signature for the more current posts.
Sorry I didn’t grasp your concept.On the old “Blog” Jay used to have a section specifically for this, called the Something like the area of knowledge so members could go to that tab and create posts about specific topics. It had a lot of pretty good posts that were topic related but most members just kept asking the same questions within the “blog” and in return those answers got spread out all over the place and were hard to re-gather back into one “whole”.
Thanks for the Kudos and interest. Hopefully the data will help. I have an outline for the topics I am going to place on our new web site and the plan shows a build out of approx. 250 + pages so far along with our art pieces spread throughout for sale. Going to be interesting to cram 6 college years, two art degrees, 40 years of professional teaching and commercial printing experience into one web site experience. The ultamate goal is to do the same amount of business through our own two web sites as we do on Etsy and Ebay and then maybe drop Ebay and Etsy altogether. I know of several who have done that and also a few that still do both.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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Hello MDC Galleries,
I remembered that each one of us has a profile page which keeps track of the forums we start (called Topics Started) and the ones we respond to (called Replies Created). With that in mind, I think it would be easier for members to simply link to your profile page and then choose what threads they wish to read through instead of trying to put everything in one forum posting which can be overwhelming. In order to make it easy for members, I am simply going to start a forum on SL titledSelling Art under the main Selling on Ebay forum with the following note.
One of the SL members – MDC Galleries- has provided extensive art details which may be of benefit to you in selling art. Please click on the this member’s profile link below in order to be able to view the Topics Started and Replies created.
https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/users/huncrelan
Mike, please let me know if this works for you. If you would like to be the one to create it, that would be fine too. Thank you.
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Have at it A/E: No problem with you doing that at all. Also maybe a reminder that both the new forum and the Blog Archives can be searched. J&R have a search field on the right side bar. Another way to search is by holding down the control key and typing the letter F for find. Then type in the search term, click to highlight the found terms in yellow and that will take you to wherever you want to go.
Once I get my sea legs under me on the other two independent sites, I will then explore many other topics on art, forgery, fakes, color, techniques, mixed media, materials, framing and matting techniques, setting up a studio, how to stretch a canvass, how best to ship art done in different mediums, archival quality vs. commercial quality, 85 line halftones vs. 133 line and higher what and why, simulated brush strokes vs. real brush strokes, various etching techniques like intaglio vs. relief printing, matting prints – die cut vs. hand french cut-dbl & triple matting, mezzo-tint, shadow boxes, and just tons more. Things we used to teach students through a complete Bachelors and Masters Fine Art program. Just tons of stuff to cover, which most will be outlined in those new web sites.
Also a whole lot of the printing and mfg. technique information applies to stamps and stamp collecting, posters and sports cards. I have been collecting Mint US Stamps since I was a young teenager. We are in the process of splitting up thousands of the stamps into yearly lots which we will be liquidating also. Many subjects such as centering, perfing, cutting, etching vs. litho printing of stamps and sports cards all apply. I can grade cards fairly well. I know which ones to send to PSA for high end grading vs. those to not waste the money on.
The bottom line is to capture, draw and pull as much traffic away from the Ebay and Etsy platforms that we can so that we are not so subservient to the whims of their rules and policies. Develope our own following, repeat customers, collectors, and mailing lists which WonderLister provides to us. That’s the beauty of a 3rd party listing software. We have literally thousand of email and home addresses, phone numbers and full contact information we have gathered through the years. So, time to start marketing directly to that customer base. We will see, but at my age I could die and never get one page completed.
So organize here on SL any way you see fit.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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Thanks, Mike, you have simultaneously blown my mind and made me feel inadequate! LOL. Thank you again for your help. My original listings were created on the basis of your posts and I have carefully read through the advice you’ve given others and tried to take the information practically. However, I’m not sure that I did enough research now!
The loupe I used makes a period sized dot about the size of the small letter a for comparison’s sake in a written format here . vs a. It shows a lot of detail. I didn’t go over the entire painting, no. I will unpack them and go over them again. Perhaps the fault is mine because I assumed they were prints based on the fact that the framing is paper backed and the paper is that odd waffle weave, as you called it.
I have no idea if I can photograph through a loupe, but I’m going to hunt for those “dots” now and see what I can find! You are an awesome treasure and I appreciate you!
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Hey Amatino: Suggestion… there are magnifying apps for your cell phone. Many are free but they limit the power of magnification. Buy them for $2.99 and you can get up to 60x [I think]. Also there is a small “Macro Lens” that is available to buy that just snaps onto the back of your photo which allows “extreme close-ups” of small details. It is great for stamped jewelry, art and stamp items, fiber viewing and tons more. I think maybe Ryanne spoke of this sometime in the past. But may be worth a small investment as a business tool.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
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