Preparing for an art show: the prints

Next in my series about preparing for Spectrum FAL. So far I have postcards and an art booklet to sell at the show; next I wanted to make some prints. So far this is the only aspect of my preparations that has gone smoothly.

• Introduction
• Part 1: the postcards
• Part 2: the booklets
• Part 3: the vertical banner
• Part 5: putting it all together
• Conclusion

In art school I either printed my art at home, or used OfficeMax. OfficeMax is surprisingly good considering it's only about $.60 per print; however, they're just photo prints. For a show like Spectrum I wanted archival prints on fine art paper.

After some Googling, I discovered Finerworks, which has excellent prices and several types of matte fine art paper. They also sell plastic sleeves for the prints, which is awesome. I chose four of my most popular illustrations and ordered four copies of each.

Meanwhile, my postcards and booklets arrived in the mail, mostly too dark. That's when I learned that I should always lighten my work before printing, but alas, my prints order had already been shipped. Great. Another Kelley fail.

The prints arrived quickly and to my great relief, they look excellent. The matte fine art paper has a subtle texture which really makes the prints look and feel special.

Only one more week until Spectrum! My next task is to matte some original pencil drawings and start putting together my table display.