Some people can’t tell the difference between a pigment ink on thick cotton paper and a dye-based ink on thin cellulose paper, but I can, and I am the one in charge. A good quality print costs a lot more, but if they don’t want good quality, they can go buy cheap prints at the dollar store or make their own art.

Does cheap sell? Yes. But cheap products don’t make me feel good about what I do, so for me, they are not worth it. And I don’t want cheap customers. I have noticed that the less someone spends, the more likely they are to complain.

I was making my own giclees on an Epson 3880, but it just became too much of an aggravation to me. So now I have gicleetoday.com print and drop-ship them and add $20 to the print price. This is the same quality ink and paper as I was doing myself, so I feel good about them.

That said, I do not sell many prints and never have. Maybe less than 10% of painting sales. For me, people are more likely to buy a small painting. I have sold plenty of small watercolors I can do in 1/2 hour for $50-$70.

All I can figure out about MY customers and prints is that those who buy prints are not going to commission a portrait. They are very happy with a print that “looks just like” their dog or cat. I have enclosed a flyer with a portfolio of my portraits and have had zero response.

So prints, for me, are not a way to “get out there”.

They’ve paid a lot of bills since I started a year or so ago. And it’s almost passive. Click Print, slip into a cello sleeve, slip into an rigid envelope and slap a label on it. I’d be surprised if it took me 5 minutes from opening the order to having it sitting by the door to toss into the mailbox the next time I walk my dog.

I just started offering my best sellers matted. I buy them in bulk and spend an hour printing, matting, and putting into the rigid envelope. Then, I just have to print the mailing label when the order comes in and I make about $4 or $5 off the mats on top of the profit off the print, itself.

I’ve found it’s a totally different market and one I didn’t think existed til I tested it.

I just can’t paint fast enough to offer inexpensive originals that can compete with them.

I think I am old enough to consider giclees or ink jet prints as “posters.” I wouldn’t pay more than $10 for a poster. If I were not an artist myself, I would only buy original art.

I can only speak from my experience, ….
It is not the print quality, or printing pigments, or quality paper etc that sells the Giclee. Artists know that quality materials make quality products, but thats not what Giclee buyers think. The actual reason why people buy Giclees, are simply because they love the original artwork but do not want the original price ….

I’m not speaking from experience, but my intuition agrees. I am about to do large C prints of my more popular paintings. C print is a fancy word for a photographic print – as giclee is a fancy word for ink jet print.

As far as print quality you will find confirmation biased reasons for each.

I visit Santa Fe a lot to visit the galleries, and I am simply astounded at the number of galleries that are now offering reproductions at amazingly high prices. I mean, $2000+ for a framed REPRODUCTION? Who in their right mind would pay that for something other than the original? Clearly, someone is, or they wouldn’t be taking up wall space. (Meanwhile, beautiful originals by the same artists can be bought at the same price…)

Michael, I was in a gallery on Los Olas Blvd in Ft. Lauderdale, and the saleswoman there had me believing they were originals. And I knew better.

That sounds like what the Thomas Kinkade galleries do or did. My friend came home from a trip to California years ago with an “Original” Kinkade that he paid $1800 for. It was a print that Kinkade had added a few brushstrokes to, numbered it and signed it. He was assured that it would more than double in value over the next few years.

Try searching Thomas Kinkade Original Print (a clear oxymoron to say the least!) on ebay.

They start at $90 or so and surprisingly go up to unbelievable ASKING prices for reproductions. The bulk of them sell for under $300.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=84720&_dmd=1&_ipg=50&LH_Complete=1&_fosrp=1&_nkw=thomas+kinkade+signed+original+print&_sop=16