Liquid Light

The digital revolution, especially in terms of printing, we are all aware of. Indeed the phenomenon is very much part of our everyday lives and there’s probably an inkjet printer close to you right now as you read this. On a larger scale, wide and even super-wide format digital inkjet print we see all around us, from vehicle graphics to point of sale and outdoor graphics, even colourful building areas.

The extraordinary flexibility of digital print is print on demand – both single and multiple prints and even one-off books. Simply, the huge capability of digital print enables the easy output of original or limited edition prints on fine art papers and canvas at the touch of a button.

The plain fact is that within this revolution, even greater revolution has been brought to an industry sector where you can now do what was previously impossible.

That market sector is fine art and photography where a whole new meaning and way of working has been enabled for original work and especially limited edition prints. The scenario is a veritable cottage industry where artists are producing their own works, from abstract to traditional portraiture, and even outputting their work on their own digital inkjet printers on an 'as required' basis.

Gone are the days for an artist of having to find a publisher, stump up the money for a printer to produce a viable run of certainly hundreds, and then having to wait, fingers crossed, that the right picture has been chosen and that those limited edition prints will sell. After printing their own work, the technology-wise digital artists can sell their prints on the web – from their own web galleries or through high street galleries. They can print then off as and when they are ordered.

Digital art generation and production has even coined its own descriptive, the giclée, for digital prints. Giclée quite simply means spray – some will say little squirt!

Anthony Marshall is one such digital artist and his digital art and reproduction methods are certainly paying dividends for him. As the Bakewell, Derbyshire-based artist elaborates, “I have been a professional landscape photographer and artist for over twenty years, working with agencies that distribute and sell my photographs in over 50 countries. During this time I have also been involved with a number of art projects, one of which was to access the treasures of Chatsworth in

Derbyshire finding imagery in that extraordinary house that could be recycled back into licensing opportunities to develop modern day products, and earn royalties for the Chatsworth Trust.”

“This gave me the unique opportunity to find imagery by looking at a marvellous collection of objects such as tapestries, furniture, china, old master drawings, jewels, bronzes, carpets, paintings, silver, sculpture and rare books. Personally, I found the chance to look through one of the finest private libraries in the world to be the most rewarding,” he says.

Chatsworth has a wonderful collection of illuminated manuscripts and sumptuously illustrated flower books from the golden age of botanical illustration. It also houses many of the great illustrated books on natural history by Audubon, Gould, Elliot and others.

“I have undertaken similar projects with the RIBA and other national collections,” says Marshall. “Recently I worked on the television programme The Artists Studio using my giclée print making skills to recreate the works of the artist Degas, to create an impression of his studio in the Paris Opera House.”

Marshall also spent three years on the board of North West Arts based in Manchester and on the board of the Site Gallery in Sheffield. Ten years ago he embraced the new digital imaging technologies, gradually becoming proficient in most aspects of digital imaging. He excelled in particular in digital archival giclée printing and of course, digital originals.

Seizing that discipline, his creative mission is now to combine elements of photography and subtle painting and he now has a full time living as an artist selling his work in a network of twelve contemporary fine art galleries throughout the UK.

Like many other photographers, Marshall had an interest in fine art despite at the time predominantly producing monochrome prints and selling them to collectors. Although he never liked photographic papers and always looked longingly at the wonderful range of papers and canvases available to artists, he always wanted to develop his own art work through photography. However, come the arrival of archival inks and papers in digital giclée printing and all of a sudden change was in the air. “These inks meant truly that something printed on canvas and paper would last,” he says.

The digital time had indeed come about and Marshall recognised that. He decided to take a year out of his photographic world and for that whole period, carry out his own market research looking at the fine art market. That meant attending small art shows, arts and crafts fairs, taking stands at major sporting events and a whole host of other events to find out exactly what the public would like to buy and how much people would spend.

After his year of research, he let go of the arts and crafts aspects of fine art to concentrate on contemporary art and selling in galleries. He also developed his Liquid Light artwork. “The Liquid Light series of canvases,” he says, “attempts to capture natural abstract designs from the fleeting moment when light is reflected off the surface of water.”

For his art reproduction, Marshall initially started off with a small Epson 2100 A3+ digital inkjet printer to output his work. As the demand for his work ramped up, he turned to Sheffield based digital print specialist DCP Systems. He invested in an Epson 9600 inkjet printer, and Hahnemühle artist papers and canvas as the media of choice. “I've grown up with DCP,” says Marshall, “a dedicated company who have been extremely helpful and beneficial during the learning curve.”

On the printer, “For anyone producing a finished product there is no other decision – it is simply Epson,” he says. Ask why so positive and the reply comes that he spent a considerable amount of time at US universities seeing the technology evolving and being put together. “And Epson is still ahead of the game,” he states. Having said that, he still surveys what is new on the market and tests it, for example with Epson's Ultrachrome pigmented inks on the 9600, he has tried alternatives but says strongly, “There are no others better.”.

At present, printing is in seven colour inks on the 9600 printer. Notably, when Epson announces another colour, Marshall gets excited as it raises the stakes in colour capability and adds more dramatic effect to his work. “We will probably get to around 11 or 12 colours in the end and that will really put colour saturation and drama in the picture.”

Now Marshall has refined his work, producing the larger picture sizes of one metre square and more and these have been shown t the more serious fine art galleries. “To be successful in the art business you need to understand firmly which sector you fit into,” he says.

Notably Marshall has ploughed his own furrow into the world of digital art, without outside financial support. DCP Systems has provided excellent help, advice and support, he notes but that aside, he has been on his own. Creating his digital art, Marshall always begins with a photographic original which he then works on in Adobe's Photoshop software and eventually prints out on the
Hahnemühle canvas before working on top of the output print in DCP’s specially developed protective and enhancing Giclée Varnish.

The Liquid Light canvases have around 14 coats of varnish when finished to produce a surface depth and the feeling that you can easily dip your fingers into the water. As well as originals, Marshall does editions and for those, “the image picks the gallery and if you are market aware, the image will get you to the gallery it should,” he says.

On that thought, that is an area that photographers and artists are perhaps not good at and which Marshall agrees – selling themselves. “But it’s a needs must situation,” he emphasises.

The camera used by Marshall is the Olympus E1. “When Olympus came back into the professional photography market, the company returned with a lens and camera system designed specifically for digital. In my view, they got it right first time.”

So Marshall has really made a name for himself in recent years for his impressive collections of contemporary canvases. He has also held many solo exhibitions and his work can be found in some of the country’s leading contemporary galleries, as well as private collections across the UK and Europe.

More on Anthony Marshall can be seen up at
http://www.creative-cin.co.uk/memberprofile.php?id=435