Oil Painting or Iris Print     All of these images were initially created on the computer to be rendered into oil paintings. The original paintings are offered in a limited edition of twenty-five. They are also available as Iris prints. Some of the images also may be produced as large-format photographic prints.    An Iris print, also known as “Giclee” (pronounced zhee-clay), is French for “spray of ink” or “squirt.” This type of “art” printing is fast replacing the standard lithograph in the art world. International standards are being developed as you read this and by now, all Giclee’s should have the same traits.      The Iris print (named after the machine that originally made them, like Kleenex is used to describe tissue) is really made from a high-end ink jet printer that prints digital images very similar to your printer at home, only more expensively. It prints millions of colors (4-5 million droplets per second) and the inks are so fine that most man-made inks won’t go through the nozzles. This has been a problem in the past because only organic inks could be used and they faded within weeks. You could get some to last a number of years if they were constantly in the dark.     Now, there are a number of inks, known as archival inks (still organic), that along with an ultra-violet spray coating, will last a lifetime. Of course, we want them to last even longer. This year, a larger and more stable variety of inks have come on the market.    The reason artists are moving to the Giclee (aside from a cool sounding name), is this: the resolution of a digital print is around 1800 dots per inch (a fine grade magizine is 150 dpi), which is higher than a traditional lithographic print and has a wider color gamut than serigraphy. Giclee prints render deep saturated colors and have a beautiful painterly quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends. Archival watercolor paper and painter’s canvass, even rice paper can be printed on. ALL IMAGES AND ITEMS COPYRIGHT  Stuart Land  1972-2009