If it was an interview you could do it over the Internet through a program like Skype. My techie niece has just done that very thing and it seems to have worked well for both parties.
But you can’t really do Skype with art. Yes, you can unclip the camera or walk around your art with the laptop and show it off that way, but it just isn’t the same as having a real full-scale print right in front of you.
And there is the hazard of giving away your images while not getting paid for the project. No, it isn’t likely to happen, the guy who wants art won’t easily be satisfied with a copy so it isn’t too much of a risk, but it is there. Back to square one.
Fortunately there is something you can do and it will get a reasonable version of your art into the hands of a prospective client even if that client is half a world away.
You can digitize the image and run down to your friendly, local Staples store and let Peggy run it through the big color printer.
Why not just buy a color printer in a wide-format design and be done with it? Well, the cost for one thing.
A good color printer in one of the wide format designs runs upwards of three hundred dollars and the supplies to keep it running will set you back a coupla hundred dollars every time you fire it up. And that is if you get an ink jet. Laser and that’s a whole nother kettle of fish.
But if you let Staples buy the big guy then they are the ones who have to keep it feed and housed and up and running. And all it costs you is the paper and time and maybe a tiny charge pro-rated for the ink to print your marvelous art work.
There are some minor difficulties. The most common is color shift. Every computer and every printer see your file just a tiny bit differently. They can be calibrated until the cows come home but the odds of getting what you see on the screen to come out of the printer the same color and shade are about the same as winning the Lotto.
But remember this isn’t the finished work and it isn’t supposed to be so good that the client will want it instead of your art, no, this is a visual aid so that the client who is not an artiest can get and idea of what the art will look like when it is hanging in their den, living room, illicit love-nest!
So the print might have a color shift. Now you can tweak it and run it through the printer again and if you are really demanding you can do it until it comes out close enough so that your fine aesthetic sensibilities are not offended or you can live with a bit of shift.
The good news is doing the Staples Stroll will only cost you a coupla bucks a print. You see, you can run it several times adjusting it until you get the absolutely correct color or you can take the least expensive path and enjoy the one that comes out of the printer the first time.
Now for those of you in the Coos Bay area do try and get Peggy. She knows her systems better than the average bear and will get pretty close on the first pass and she’s a delight to work with and that makes any job easier if the folks you have to work with are great guys in the first place.
The up side of this is most art can’t be sent by UPS cause it is delicate and cumbersome and heavy and it would cost you more to send it than you could ever hope to get out of the sale, but if you have a print you can roll it up, stick it in a mailing tube and away she goes!
Okay, okay, I can hear you protesting through the closed window. If you just can’t live with the possibility that your wonderful creation might be represented by cheap commercial printing, then there’s an alternative. Talk to Ken Snoddy at Easy Lane Frames and Select Gallery.
Ken is a photographer and knows all about the color shift problem between screen and printer and he is a certified Ace with PhotoShop, Elements and all of the other wonder goodies which do those amazing things to the stuff which comes from your camera. So in his hands the image you bring will be the image you get.
Remember with great ability comes great responsibility, you can’t expect someone who has the knowledge and the skill to work as fast as a computer driven piece of software. Ken will do the right job with what you bring him but you have to allow the time it takes for a craftsman to get all of the elements right.
The short answer is, if the client is, as they often are, one of those guys who just has to have it now, right now, right freaking now, then Staples and Peggy offer the best solution. If you are submitting to a source where critical consideration comes into play, call Ken.
And in any event, call ahead. It is just the right thing to do, it is only polite and it will get you a lot more consideration than dumping your stuff in a great big pile and saying, “I need it by six o’clock today!”
Do this and dealing with people who don’t have an artist’s eye can be almost as much fun as creating the work and in any event the print will make a good addition to your professional presentation the next time you have a contact drop by the studio.
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