Print Critique

Just to wrap up the printmaking discussions, I'd be willing to critique a print of yours if you're interested.

If you're making a print for yourself and you particularly like it, or are proud of it, make an extra one and send it to me. I might feature your print in a post on TOP. I'll provide a critique like you might get from an instructor, not an art critic. If I get a bunch I'll pick, say, five prints I think I have something to say about. Of course, readers will only see online JPEGs, but since I can see the originals I can describe to others what I'm seeing and how I feel about it.

I've had my new eye for 11 months to the day now, and with my new bionic glasses I'm feeling pretty confident of the ol' eagle eyesight. I've been a fine-print connoisseur for a long, long time, and I've seen a lot of fine prints in person and up close over many years. I used to travel to other cities just to see photography shows. In my years in D.C. I would go to the Library of Congress and call up boxes of historical prints to examine. I've looked  at prints for hours on end at places ranging from the U.S. National Archives to the storage rooms of art dealers. And I was a custom exhibition printer myself. I've had a pretty wide-ranging exposure to the art and craft.

Don't feel they have to be spectacular, though (although I certainly don't mind that). Anything you think is interesting and that you think I might like to see is fine.

Sound intriguing? If you'd like to play, I've made up a separate page with the details.

Mike
(Thanks to all the readers and friends who have brought me prints or sent me prints over the years)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

David Dyer-Bennet: "You don't say anything about size. But...gotta be the same size we're making for ourselves, right? Because prints at different sizes don't get made identically (by good printers). Do you have a religious position against rolling in tubes?"

Mike replies: Very sorry! Somehow that got left out. Maximum size 13x19". I changed the Details page to reflect that. I don't have any storage here and it's difficult for me to handle large sizes. I guess this is prejudiced against people who only print big, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Comments

[Stan B.]

I wish everyone could see 35mm B&W prints (in person) by Henry Wessel- just so they could see first hand the kind of image quality capable from that tiny neg when in the hands of a master.

Also wish everyone could see a print of Navigation Without Numbers by Wynn Bullock, just so everyone could see what a technical, and emotional wallop, large format B&W can deliver...

[David Dyer-Bennet]

You don't say anything about size. But...gotta be the same size we're making for ourselves, right? Because prints at different sizes don't get made identically (by good printers). Do you have a religious position against rolling in tubes?

[Moose]

Penalty for color?

Or

Bonus for monochrome?

\;~)>

[Dave Hodson]

Hi Mike

Hope you're well. As someone relatively new to printing, I wonder if you could put together a post on what you look for and how you go about critiquing a print. Do you have different criteria for b&w vs colour?

All the best
Dave

[psu]

Will you critique my 16 bit Pro Color high resolution master image files?

🙂

[Pierre Charbonneau]

Nice offer Mike. But what about the Baker' dozen at the museum, any follow-up?

[David Boyce]

I'm going to try, but in this age of isolation and closed boarders getting anything anywhere in the world outside the local borders is, well, problematic. This from the guy who has just returned from the post office with a parcel he can't post as there is no airmail currently to the country he wanted to send it too.

Strange times.

[Hugh]

13" x 19"... you mean I've got to go out and buy small paper...

Seriously, you don't have to store mine if I send them. Tear them up, send me a mobile phone snap of the torn pieces. I hit "print", and my prints have magically returned this side of the Atlantic.

Heresy?
The new post-covid digital world?