What is Gicleé

A certain category of fine art print is known in the art world as a Gicleé. "Gicleé" (zhee-clay) is a French term, in this case meaning, "spray of Ink".

What is the process?

The cornerstone of this process is enhanced Iris digital ink jet printers which have been specifically modified for the rigorous and precise criteria of fine art collectors and connoisseurs of museum quality, limited edition prints. The printers use continuous tone technology in which infinitely small pixels of color are capable of rendering an amazingly smooth and consistent image, to faithfully mirror the artists original oil painting, watercolor, photograph, or digital art. The substrate (material, paper, or canvas) is affixed to a drum, and as the drum rotates at a very high speed, individual droplets of color are sprayed on to the surface at a rate of 4-5 million droplets per second. Once completed, a 34" x 46" image is comprised of almost 20 billion droplets of ink. In this process, we use the most archival, water based organic inks available in the world. We then complete the print by applying UV light resistant and light stabilizer post-coatings. The results are highly prized museum quality prints, in a limited edition.

Why is giclee printing the way of the future?

The apparent resolution of the digital print is 1,800 dots per inch, which is higher than a traditional lithographic print and has a wider range of color than serigraphy. Gicleé prints render deep saturated colors and have a beautiful painterly quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends.

A variety of substrates can be used.

These include archival watercolor paper (such as Arches, Somerset, Laguna) glossy paper and cotton duck canvas. The prints may be hand embellished by the artist, to substantially increase the value, using any of a variety of media such as paint, ink or gold leaf stamping for mixed media effect.