(This is a loooong post. Good to read if you’re looking for a fine art printer or masochistic!)

As I said in my earlier post– I ordered an Epson R2880 to start making prints of my own. I’m definitely still going to order from iprintfromhome as well (they use the same inkset and paper as I am) but I wanted to be able to make archival, museum-quality prints on demand. The printer arrived earlier this month and I’ve had some time to test it out.  I must say: IT’S AMAAAAAZING!

I ordered it refurbished because it was a LOT less expensive, Epson guarantees their quality, and will replace it if something doesn’t work. It arrived with absolutely no scratches or blemishes to show that it’s a refurb, and was just like new.

It was easy to set up and I was ready to work on making a print about an hour after opening the box. This printer made stunning prints straight out of the box, but I did end up purchasing a monitor calibrator since my screen was way off for printing. I won’t go into what calibrator you should buy (I’m not an expert), but I will say that this is a vital part of professional printing to get your monitor colors accurate.

I bought the Spyder3 Express Calibrator which worked great after some trial and error, and for paper I purchased Epson Watercolor Radiant White paper for test prints (it’s thinner at 190 gsm and is wood pulp, not cotton) and the more expensive Epson Velvet Fine Art paper for final prints (thick at 260 gsm, 100% cotton and totally archival) which produces the most beautiful textured and rich prints I’ve seen so far.

I wish I could accurately show how nice the prints look, but all I have are bad photographs. In any case, you can see the depth of color and the great texture of these prints– in person you really can’t tell that they are not my originals without a magnifying glass!

I am no kind of expert when it comes to printing, so I can’t write up an educated review… But I have been doing a ton of research about what people look for in prints and I can describe my experience for anyone else thinking about purchasing a printer for artwork.

Choosing a Printer

Basically, my needs for a printer were this:

• It needed to use pigment inks, which are much more stable than dye ink
• It needed to print 13×19″
• It needed to handle thick matte fine art paper
• The color print quality needed to be freaking awesome and professional (which means it would probably use at least 8 inks to capture all those colors)
• It needed to not be absolutely enormous

I did some research within the Canon, HP, and Epson brands. My initial list that seemed to have many of these features looked like this:

• HP Photosmart Pro B9180
• Canon Pixma Pro9500
• Epson R1900
• Epson R2880
• Epson R3800

Some quick research showed me that the Epson R1900 was not what I wanted– it is an excellent printer, but aimed toward glossy printing and unable to handle heavy fine art paper well. Good. One down!

Next, I ruled out the Epson R3800 (kind of a larger 2880) because it’s crazy big and prints up to 17″.  It was also too expesnsive. I hesitated a bit, because the R3800 has ink cartridges so large that it ships with over $500 worth of ink, but space is an issue and I did not want to go crazy. I can always order 17″ prints online if I need.

Deciding between the rest was more difficult. The Canon Pixma 9500, HP B9180 and Epson R2880 all seemed to be great printers, with fans of each. Each could print the same size with at least 8 archival pigment inks. Each had different pros and cons. I eventually decided on the Epson R2880 because it definitely had equal-to-better reviews in terms of print quality, it’s smaller and faster than the HP and Canon, the Ultrachrome K3 inks are drooled over, it can use one of highest reviewed fine art papers (Epson Velvet), and the main complaint for it–the fact that you have to waste ink swapping black cartridges for glossy vs. matte paper–wasn’t an issue since I will never use glossy paper anyway. It uses the same inkset/paper as they use at iPrintFromHome, so I already knew the prints would look awesome.

The Canon and HP did feature larger ink catridges (Epson’s are ridiculously small… another con) but since I am not yet a high-volume printer, I was not too worried about this. Basically, the Canon and HP didn’t have any outstanding positives to outweigh the Epson.

If you’re an artist like me looking for a high quality printer, all the ones I listed would be great. I chose the R2880 because it had the qualities I needed, but the others might be perfect for someone else! Just make sure the printer uses archival inks and can handle archival paper, so that your customers will have prints that last for decades.

If you guys remember my review of iPrintFromHome, I totally love them. This week, they are having a special that I thought would be great for illustrators. Check it out below, and visit them at: iPrintFromHome.com to order!

If you sign up and say I referred you by typing “Tweet - jadefrolics” in the referral box, you’ll get a $10 credit to start out your account, too.

This Week’s Tweet Treat (valid October 23rd-30th): Free 4×6, 8×10 or 16×20 Somerset Velvet Giclee Fine Art Print: You Choose!!**

You’ve spent hours, and days, and weeks working on your paintings and now you’re ready to turn them into prints.

But, I bet you’re a little nervous about how much it’s going to cost and you may be worried about managing an inventory. You’ve probably heard that many Giclee printers will charge a setup fee in addition to holding a minimum order requirement.

You don’t have to worry about any of that stuff when you order from us. No minimum orders. No set up fees. And, our prints are always 100% guaranteed.

(Sometimes we have minimum order requirements associated with promotions like this one, but there are never minimum order requirements on standard orders.)

To help you get started, we’re offering you a free Giclee Fine Art Print with your order this week. So go ahead and take that leap. We promise, it’s not that complicated.

Your Tweet Treat offer will be based on your order total (not including shipping), with the following breakdown:

$10 order total - eligible for one Free 4×6 Somerset Velvet Giclee Fine Art Print
$20 order total - eligible for one Free 8×10 Somerset Velvet Giclee Fine Art Print
$75 order total - eligible for one Free 16×20 Somerset Velvet Giclee Fine Art Print

Instructions:
1. Place an order at iPrintfromHome.com that totals $10 or more by midnight on Friday, October 30th. Be sure to add the corresponding Somerset Velvet Giclee Fine Art Print to your order, but remember that the Giclee Print does not count towards your order total. (NOTE: Your Tweet Treat offer will be based on your order total, not including shipping or the Free Giclee Print)
2. IMMEDIATELY after placing your order, send us an e-mail (here) with “Tweet Treat – Free Giclee” in the body of the e-mail.
3. Once we receive your e-mail, we will adjust your order total to account for your Free Giclee Fine Art Print.
*Offer does not include shipping.
**Limit: One Tweet Treat order per customer/shipping address.
***Tweet Treat orders are not guaranteed to be completed within our standard turnaround times, but every effort will be made to do so.

Awesome, huh? You have til October 30, so check it out if you want!

I’m moving my site to a new domain (the domain I have been coveting for years since I was stupid enough to let it expire) but the process has been tricky. I realize there is no navigation bar, but I should be back to work finishing things up tomorrow then I will write some proper posts. Hooray!

Though I’ve been neglecting my poor blog lately, it’s not for a lack of things happening! (Well… maybe it kinda is.) This last weekend I attended my third Market Bazaar, and since storms were forecast for the day I was nervous and prepared by lugging a tarp over there with me. Luckily, it ended up being a gorgeous day and a lot of fun hanging out with the other sellers. When I leave Savannah at the end of July, the market bazaar will be one thing I really miss!

I met an awesome lady at the Bazaar this month doing henna– I was sad because I couldn’t leave my booth to get some done, and she was sad because she didn’t have extra money to buy a print, so she ended up coming to my booth and doing my hand in exchange for a print. Hooray! My camera’s batteries are dead, but I took a picture with my really bad camera phone. It looks amazing, and I’m keeping my hand as filthy as possible so as not to accidentally scrub off skin cells. (I’m kidding. Wait. Am I…?)

In other news! I was delighted to wake up today and find that Hana at SupahCute.com was kind enough to feature my work on her blog of cute stuff! I love checking out her blog, and actually having work up there makes me so happy. Thanks, Hana!

I try not to spam my blog with constant shop promotion posts, but Etsy is doing a MASSIVE sale this weekend called the Yart Sale, and I didn’t want to be left out! The Yart Sale is from June 10-14, and features sellers all across Etsy hosting their own awesome sales. If you search “Yart Sale” or “yartfreeship” in Etsy, there’s a ton of sales going on right now!

I wanted on the bandwagon too, so I’m offering:

* Free shipping on all my dolls
* 20% off orders up to $25 and
* 30% off orders over $25.

At my Etsy Shop

Sweet! Let me know what sales you have going on too, and I’ll check them out!

Here’s some stuff I came up with when typing “Yart Sale Cat” into Etsy’s search. Weeee!

I got bored today and decided to redo the ugly Wordpress smileys into some ugly cat smileys. I only have a few done so far, but I’ll keep working on ‘em!

Since I mailed out my Three Little Kittens dummies in December, it has been so long I had lost hope of ever receiving back any of the books I sent– I figured they were all in the trash/being used to scrape dead flies off of walls, because most publishers now have an understandable policy of not returning any submissions. But this publisher returned my dummy….. AND my business card, AND my postcard, AND all my sample sheets

(I was hoping they would at least keep the samples…)

But seriously, the first rejection is a major achievment, since it means I actually sent something out to begin with. I just might frame this rejection letter as a sign that I am now an OFFICIAL aspiring-hopeful-wannabe children’s book Author/Illustrator. Woohoo!

I’m working on some dolls to get ready to open an Etsy shop… here’s a peek at my first one! Also I think I am going to start a series of posts about the journey to become an Etsy seller… where everyone can witness either the slow rise to success or the plunge into ceaseless obscurity! :}

I’ve also been trying to think of ways for this blog to be helpful to other people, so I’d like to start posting How-To guides, maybe starting with how to make a doll (my way, at least) in case anyone was interested.

This post has no purpose other than to say that the new Giant Chewy Nerds have to be the best candy ever made. Awesome Nerdsishness on the outside, jelly bean on the inside; it almost makes me willing to brave the streets of Savannah at 1:00 a.m just to have some. (Note: almost)

That is all.

So I found a streaming video of my favorite movie ever…. Cat Soup. I won’t tarnish its glory by describing it except to say that the boy kitten’s sister had half her soul taken and they go on a journey to get it back.

Hooray!

Check it out here.