Affordable Paintings: Art Prints Buying Guide

The fastest way to bring beauty and style to a room is to put up prints of beautiful paintings. Here's what you should consider:

Painting Prints Price Range:

Expect to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$500 for an unframed print--anything less than $50 is likely a poster. You should expect to pay a similar amount to have the print framed--note that many prints are designed to be exhibited without frames.

Before art prints were sold online, the only way to get them was through galleries or museum shops, which had to charge a large markup. Nowadays, art prints rarely cost more than a few hundred dollars, and it is possible to find good-quality prints for under $100. Still, those lower prices generally come on prints that have been put on sale. Expect to pay more for perennial favorites like Van Gogh's “Starry Night”.

Selection

There is at least one print of every painting or photograph on display in a museum anywhere. Thanks to the internet, you can find the right art print among the tens of thousands in existence and have it sent to you, regardless of where the original is located. Since websites will let you browse thumbnail images of the artwork, it's easy to find a particular piece even if all you know about it is the name of the artist or even just the time period in which it was created.

Painting Print Media

Prints are available in a variety of print stocks.

Prints vs. Original Paintings

If all you're interested in is a picture to decorate your wall, rather than in collecting, prints are a better value than original paintings. Here's why:

* Expense. Creating an original work of art generally takes weeks. If you had to employ someone for several weeks or several months, how much do you think it would cost at even a modest salary? That's why original artwork generally costs at least thousands of dollars. In order to have a real chance of your work of art having investment value, you need to buy the work of an artist who is moving up in the art market.

* Questionable investment value. Original artwork only has investment value if the price goes up eventually. Very often, the price does not. In short, if you're interested in investing, buy stocks--it's a safer bet. Only buy art because *you* value it.

* Knowledge. You need to be very knowledgeable about what you are doing. Make no mistake: there's plenty of fraud in this business. There is also plenty of wishful thinking on the part of art dealers when it comes to a work's long-term market prospects.

Ready to make your home more beautiful with prints of great paintings? You're already in the right place: the internet has numerous websites offering an unbelievable array of art prints. Start looking now.

What Is A Monoprint? What Is Foxing

What is a Monoprint?

A monoprint is

frequently interchanged with the word "monotype". "Monoprint" tends to be used by academics versus those selling art to the design community who prefer the word "monotype".

An artist starts by "painting" or "drawing" with ink on a surface such as a printmaking plate made of aluminum or zinc. Some use a large pane of Plexiglas to paint on. The resulting image is transferred to a piece of paper by placing a sheet of paper on top of the inked plate, running it through a press. One monoprint is yielded looking like what the artist drew with ink. Some residue of ink remains on the printmaking plate. That faint residue of ink becomes the platform from which the artist builds his/her next composition. The secondary composition can employ different colors as well as compositional changes. An advantage of making monoprints is the creation of a rhythm of working, saving time by creating subsequent compositions using the "ghost image" as a starting point for the next work of art.

What is Foxing?

Foxing is

is a condition flaw on a work on paper.
Foxing yields a freckled appearance typically of red brown spots. Currently it is believed these are iron oxides and hydroxides produced by the chemical reaction between the organic acids discharged by mold and the colorless iron salts and impurities embedded in the paper.

Dampness encourages mold. Some types of sizing in the paper also attract fungus growth. Acidic contact materials such as cardboard and animals glues can aggravate the foxing.

Only a professional paper conservator can minimize the appearance of foxing safely.

To read more on this topic, I suggest The Care of Prints and Drawings by Margaret Holben Ellis as well as Prints and The Print Market by Theodore B. Donson.