Creating prints of my art

Playing around with my new (used) printer.  I created some business cards on recycled paper.

When I first started selling my art online this past Fall, I wanted to focus on creating affordable original art.  But, lately, I have been thinking about making prints of my work. I started researching decent printers and eventually found a deal on craigslist that I couldn't pass up.  I bought an Epson 1900, which is a pigment inkjet printer.  The advantage of pigment ink is its archival quality.  Supposedly prints can last 100 - 200 years.

So, for the past week, I've had fun testing out my new toy.  For the first couple of days, I experimented printing on different inkjet papers.  I went to a local photo store and bought a couple of sample packets of Hahnemuhle and Canson fine art papers.  There were eight different sheets that I ran through the printer, all with the same image.  I was surprised to find that there really wasn't much of a difference between the different kinds of paper.  Although I really liked the weight of Hahnemuhle's Museum Etching paper, I eventually bought a packet of Hahnemuhle's Sugar Cane paper, which is made from sugar cane fibers and recycled materials.

The sugar cane paper has a textured and matte surface.  Yesterday, I decided to print a photo of the Columbia Gorge that I took just a day prior, and I loved how it turned out.  The photo looks somewhat like a painting (especially the background), which was the effect I was going for. 

Here's another photo I took on our trip to the Gorge.  The print is a little darker than the actual photograph, but I ended up liking the darker, muted colors as much as the original image.

Future printing projects I have in mind include postcards and notecards. I would also like to create a limited edition pocketbook gallery. The little books would be printed and assembled in my studio, so I'll need  to work on the logistics of all that.