Problem #1 - How to get prints made of your art

I've been tackling this one for several months now, so I thought I would document my findings so far. I still have a lot of research to do because I eventually want to make my own prints, but that requires space and more expensive equipment, so that's on hold for now.

First of all, when I set out to get prints made I thought I would be able to easily google it and find a good place within about 5 minutes. I was shocked. Google has always been my friend but not this time. All it would come up with was what the various types of prints are but no real good way to go about acquiring them and certainly no list of local printers skilled in this area.

My next solution was to ask various artists I knew how they got prints made. This also put me at quite the dead end. A couple made their own prints. Some didn't make any prints. And one gave me the name and phone number of her printer in China Town in LA.

So I called this guy up and made an appointment with him. I then drive all the way up to LA, baby, paintings and all, to meet this guy. It takes me about 30 minutes to find parking, then I have to go to a gas station to get change since the parking is $2.00 per hour there. I manage to get this done, get the baby and my paintings out, and search out this guys studio, which was in a back alley in between some buildings.

He shows up about 30 minutes late. I finally get inside and sit down with him. We begin discussing what I want and the pricing. His pricing is astronomical in my eyes. He would be charging about $120 to get 3 paintings/drawings scanned, and then the actual prints were anywhere from about $40 and up. I had 7 pictures. Added all up...about $600. Not possible, I haven't won the lottery yet.

Very disappointed, I continue in my search. Finally I get another referral from a friend here in San Diego for a place called Chrome Printing. I check out their website, they seem pretty good with reasonable prices. I gather all of my work up and head out to their office.

I walk in, am greeted kindly. I show them what I want and ask for help on how to go about doing it. They help me pick out the right kind of paper and inform me of their amazing pricing. The charge $25 to scan anything 16" by 20" or above, and $15 for anything smaller than that. I only had one 16" by 20" and the rest were smaller, so that came out to $115. The prints I wanted were to all roughly be around 12" by 16," and those were only about $13 a piece! So all in all, I spent about $200, compared to $600. And just to note, the prints and scans came out amazing!

The moral of the story, SHOP AROUND. And secondly, unfortunately, you must know someone who knows someone, in my experience. Thirdly, it should be a simple and relatively inexpensive process. I had a friend who offered to hook me up with a photographer who could digitize (hopefully the right word) my pictures and then I could take them to a printer for the prints. This was a nice offer, but way to complicated and time consuming. I wanted an all-in-one location and I found it.

If anyone needs help with this process, let me know. I do know a lot of artists and am willing to either get your art and take it to Chrome Printing for you, or do research for you and help you find a good printer.