Am I Ready for the BIG Leagues?

 

"Reach for the Sky"- Commission Piece painted for Walter Johnson Jr. High School- 18 x 24 Acrylic 

In the past two weeks I took a step in my art career that has been one I have wanted to take for some time but was hesitant.  Then this painting came along and I decided to have my most recent painting "Reach for the Sky" professionally scanned and digitized so that I could have the ability to have quality giclee prints made in the future.   I felt this particular piece was one that might have a greater appeal to a pretty broad audience and so I took the plunge.

On the recommendation of a good artist friend of mine,  I contacted Joyce Kasprzyk at Max Art Production here in Las Vegas.  Joyce was so awesome and I immediately took a liking to her.  She wound up taking me on a tour of the entire facility.  Every room we visited was full of the biggest printers and scanners I had ever seen.  Of course she had to show me the large print job they had just completed for the actor Jim Carrey.  Who knew he was an artist but just looking at that giant print made me feel like I had just been moved up to the major leagues.

The process itself was a wee bit expensive but I'm hopeful to recoup my invest many times over.  I was very pleased a week later when I arrived to actually view and approve the proofs.  The one proof you see is the one that I didn't take.  I was very pleased with the color and the clarity.  Of course this photo is taken only with my cell phone camera of the original artwork and with the proof laid on top. 

Usually we take a photo of my artwork outside in the shade with our Canon camera.  This works okay but sometimes I notice there is a flat spot or a little color distortion.  I make sure that I take have the picture taken before a coat of varnish is applied but even so often there will be a slight reflection that is difficult to deal with.  When I look at the two photos below and compare the images side by side I can see such a difference in clarity and color.  Perhaps if we knew just a bit more about our camera we could improve on the quality of the pictures we take but it is hard to image that we could get them as spot on as Max Art Productions did for me.  

Here you can judge for yourself:

No Edit - Photo taken by our camera

Photo using auto correction feature on Photoshop Elements

WOW-Professionally scanned image