Give a credit
 

Here's an idea that's not fully baked. There's probably more than one good reason not to do this.

You've just finished a rather expensive portrait of Ms. Gotrocks' granddaughter and you'd like to thank her for the business. Here's what: spend a $100 and get her a pre-paid credit card with the image of the painting of her granddaughter on the card. It's the newest thing, credit cards with your image on it.

How thrilled would she be? Free money, plus a reminder of the painting ever time she whips it out. She will probably show it to all her friends, and when the money runs out she may even add money to it so she can keep on whipping.

Here's a web site of one of the companies that offer the service, there are others:

http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/i...050627&pgnum=2

George said to Jerry Seinfeld one day: "Do you ever get down on your knees and thank God that you have access to my dementia?" I forget what Jerry's answer was.

Creative Advertising
 

Mike, you are one creative dude! I absolutely love the idea. That could be a whole lot of advertising for very little. (Of course, it depends upon how much the commission was!) :oops:

It's clever, but in a rather tacky way. Too gimicky.
I guess it would depend on how seriously you would like your work to be taken.

( only in America) ;)

I give my clients half a dozen nicely printed notecards with their image on the front and my contact info on the back. That way they can frame one for grandma and send the rest to out of town friends. They're kind of upscale looking and are in nice gold lined envelopes. Anyway, that's just what I do as a follow up thank you, and as a way of possibly rounding up some future business.

This may fall into the category -- just because I can do it doesn't mean I should do it.

I think Michele's idea is a better one.

Although..... I've never gotten a commission that way, but hey, maybe someday!

I do something similar to Michelle but with business cards. I have a business card program on my computer . The design has an image of a painting and I have two versions, one horizontal and one verical card depending on the painting I am using. When I finish a job I give the client about a couple dozen business cards with their painting on it.. It is easy to switch images on the computer. The one I thought looked the best was when I ran out of business card stock and instead used a glossy photo paper. I had the image right up to the edge of the card at the top and sides( it was a vertical card) then I just trimmed them with my paper cutter. It looked great, kind of like a wallet photo with my info in the white space on the bottom. The photo paper gives a sharp, clear image. Just remember to change your printers set up to"best". This gets your info right into someones hand to keep. And people are always happy to show off their painting and some even set them on their desks at work and advertise for you.

Cynthia & Michele, those are nice ideas.

Mike, I am glad you thought to shelve it. Sorry if i was a little blunt.
I think it was the gimmicky thing with $$$ attached that i found rather tacky.

Of course, you must not listen to me. I have sold one painting only so far - so who am i to speak. :thumbsdow

Tricia,

No worries. The good news is that in a recent University study it was determined that 76% (82% overseas) of the people have no idea what I'm talking about 62% of the time. Of those that indicated that they did, more than half were lying.

They said that as long as these numbers hold up they weren't too concerned about what I say in public.

Huh?

;)

Most suffer in silence.

Ha ha - You are a good sport Mike. :thumbsup:

Printed postcards
 

Michele,

What a fantastic idea. But how do you only get half a dozen printed? Are you using a high quality printer at home with special paper?

It seems the minimum to have something printed on a press in 4 color is usually a high number (500) and would be cost prohibitive (for me).

thanks for sharing your great ideas,

Joan

I use an Epson R300 inkjet printer (which costs around $100) at home, with Costco photo paper (costs around $20 for 125 sheets). I use this printer and paper to print thank you cards, notecards for clients, 8x10 printouts for my portfolio, samples of my work to mail to prospective clients, my business cards and photo reference to paint from. In short, it's a real workhorse. The ink isn't cheap (I spend many times more than the cost of the printer on ink over the course of a year) but it's worth it to have complete control over the quality and quantity of what I print.

Thank you!
 

Dear Michele,

Thank you for that helpful information. We have an 'hp deskjet 5150' that we've tried to print postcard type things on, even with special paper and the special ink catridge, and didn't have good results.

But . . . what you have does sound like a real workhorse, and a reasonable start-up cost, then costs going up as needed. I was thinking of having some postcards printed from modernpostcards but for the cost of 500 cards and envelopes from them, I could have a printer that I can make my own cards on. Honestly, I don't need 500 postcards and if I did, then it would be reasonalbe to have them done at modernpostcards. I'm having a 'show' at our church in January and February so I thought it would be nice to have some postcard sized notecards with my name and number on the back.

How wonderful to be able to print up 10 postcards at a time.

I'm not sure if we have a Costco here in Houston, and if we do I'm not a member. Probably photo paper from the local Office Depot would work. We probably have some around here from our previous failed attempts with this deskjet printer.

Thank you Michele, you are always so helpful and generous with your time.

Can't wait to go out and get a new printer. (Saving my husband more money! :) )

Joan

More uses!
 

Michele,

I reread your post and hadn't noticed you could even print photo references from the printer. It must be very good quality! Last week and this week alone I've spent almost $40 just on having some 8"x10" prints made at the local CVS for reference photos.

Wow, I'm excited to learn about this printer. Thanks again Michele,

Joan

(If only it would make dinner . . .)

R300?
 

Michele,

I can't find the Epson R300 at the Office Depot website. They have lots of printers but not that model number. Is it a 'stylus color' printer? They just don't have one listed as R300. Would you mind giving me any other info that might be on the printer? I realize that if your printer is more than 3 months old (!) they have probably come out with a new model and I probably can't find the exact same thing. There's an RX100 but that's about the closest I can come.

Sorry to be such a bother but what you have sounds so great.

thanks,
Joan

Found it!
 

Looks like I found it. Epson Stylus Photo R300 Inkjet printer. Office Max and Circuit City have it, according to the web.

Thanks again Michele,

Joan

I've had good experience doing color prints on HP's glossy brochure paper. I don't know anything about the printer being discussed or it's DPI, but in general, a higher DPI printer should yield better results, provided you've also scanned at a higher DPI.

There are some places on the web where you can get recycled cartridges for much less. Once in a while you'll get one that doesn't work, but I've had pretty good success.

Hi, Everyone,

Just noticed this thread and wanted to let you all know about 101ink.com. You can save a bundle on inks there and the quality is very high. We use an Epson 785EPX photo printer and have also found the Costco photo papers to be excellent. My husband is a commercial photographer who sends many, many mailings, so he is extremely particular about the quality of the work he is presenting.

Carol

Thanks for the suggestions about inks, Cynthia and Carol. I will take a look. I do spend a bundle on that stuff. I have had bad luck in the past with third party inks that made a mess of the printer, and have heard about some other brands that contained far less ink as a way of keeping the costs down. I'm ready to take another look at a source for less expensive supplies!

Paper
 

My printer arrived, I got the R300 from epson.com. It was $125 with free shipping. It's still in the box downstairs, now I need to get it set up. :o

Next I need to head over to OfficeMax or Office Depot and find some suitable paper to send out a few notecards. I don't belong to Costco.

Thanks Cynthia for your input. I'll just go take a look at our office supply places and see what they have in the way of glossy paper.

Anybody else have any paper suggestions for notecards?

thanks,

Joan

Joan--
Avery makes nice note card stock. I've had bad luck with cheaper versions (sometimes they don't fold straight/evenly and just look sloppy).

If you're looking for something a little fancier in terms of card stock, the office supply store near us has a section with printer stationary for weddings. . . Some of the blank wedding invitation stock is very classy looking and reasonably priced.

The HP glossy brochure stock is a little pricey, but worth it! It's heavier than just glossy paper and scored for folds, takes color beautifully.

I'm using my HP 5150 with good results. I insert a "photo" cartridge in instead of the black, (keeping the tricolor in place), use glossy paper of good quality, set the print to "maximum DPI" and make sure that my original has a higher number dpi. That's what I'm doing for photo samples.

For business cards, I do the same, but use the black cartridge.
My business cards are printed out with a bleed edge, and I cut them down myself. A bit time-consuming, but it works for me.

Another printing option
 

One of the things I often do is use an online printer that allows uploading of your own artwork. I have had good results with Vistaprint . For a one time fee of $4.99 you can upload your own image (I make a composite with photoshop that includes any text I want), which can then be used with any of the print items they offer for sale. You can order card in quantities as small as 10. They also print business cards. My business card has three small head studies on it. In my experience, this has been lower cost than printing cards myself.
To ensure proper color, etc, you can order a PDF proof for $1.99. Once, I had some cards delivered with improper color, and when I called, the quality department folks took the information over the phone and I had corrected cards within two days.
Vistaprint offers frequent (monthly) sales on many of their products. You can have custom business cards printed for as little as $3.99 for 250.

Thank you Terri, Julie, and Molly,

Thanks for all the good information. I have my new printer set up and it prints beautifully on the Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. I think being able to print out 8x10 reference photos to paint from will pay for the printer itself.

But, finding a good stock to print my notecards on has been a different story! I found some matte paper with envelopes (a set of 25 each) at the office supply store. Actually, this printer prints beautifully on the matte paper. It's not very thick at all, only 48 lb, but it's okay.

I have not gotten my new printer to print on any kind of glossy stock successfully. Except the photo paper, which has 'EPSON' printed across the back on a diagonal about 100 times, so that won't work for notecards! I went to my local printer this morning and he sent me to a huge paper warehouse here in Houston. What fun! I came home with about 10 different samples of matte and glossy card stock, some specifically for ink jet, some just plain glossy card stock. Nothing worked as well as the little set of matte card stock I got at the office supply store yesterday. (Though using those and cutting them down and not using the envelopes makes this option expensive! I like my own envelope sizes.)

When I print on the glossy card stock the image is very faded and splotchy. I'm sure it must be the card stock because I can get the printer to print photo quality prints on the 'premium photo paper' from Epson. I called Epson this morning and got a guy that didn't know much. He was no help at all with the quality of printing. Apparently they don't have a glossy card stock available.

I did see the tri-fold brochure glossy paper by HP in the store, but I'm trying to print 5x5" or 4 1/2 x 5 1/2" notecards. It would be better to just find the paper and then I can cut it myself, I have tons of envelopes from old projects. Oh, the paper store this morning didn't carry Avery paper. I could search that out though.

Molly, what you're doing with the online printing sounds good, I'm going to check that out. And I can believe it's less expensive, I've already used up 25% of each of my 6 ink cartridges. I just watch those little levels go down and down. Oh well, I'm experimenting and once I get the paper figured out I think it'll be easier. The basic problem is not finding glossy paper in CARD stock, it's all too flimsy for decent looking/high quality notecards. I will look into the wedding invitation stock Terri.

I don't mind cutting down the cards myself, I have a nice big paper cutter. And I like the square format and have found some great square envelopes, found them this morning at the paper store.

thank you again everyone, I'll keep at it ;)

Joan

inks
 

I have a epson stylus photo 2200 printer which has "archival" individual ink cartridges for each of 7 colors. I've found it makes much richer prints than my old epson photo ex, and an advantage is that you only replace the color that is used up. I don't get good results however, with anything but epson products.

I have made cards for my clients in the past, but got lazy when nothing seemed to come of it. I should start doing this again. I have been asked, however, to make high quality digital prints for grandparents etc... which I can do up to 11x17 on my printer. (you need a high quality image to blow it up this big.) I also have recently tried, as an experiment, to get a larger (18x24) image professionally blown up on canvas, and I am working into it a bit with oils for added richness and subtlty of color. This is for the parents, because they are giving the original to the grandparents.

Paper
 

Hi Andrea,

Thanks for the info on your printer. I think you may have something there with your reference to Epson products. When I called Epson they stressed using their products, which naturally they would!

My problem is that I am looking for glossy paper, fairly heavy like card stock, so I can make notecards. Well, I quizzed the Epson guy and they even connected me with their paper department and I was told Epson doesn't make a glossy card stock! The only way I can make glossy cards (with Epson products) is to buy the ready-packaged sets of 25 with glossy card stock. They're 6" x 9", which is a little big, so I end up cutting down the stock and using different envelopes. An expensive way to do this, but it's the best option until I find something better to print on.

I just haven't had time these past few days to get to the Office Supply store to see what they have.

Joan

I didn't read every post in this thread, but you should be aware of cafepress.com

They allow you to upload images and have them printed on various items. Some might not be appropriate for a portrait artist. You wouldn't want a clock with a portrait on the face, but many of the items, like the tile box, would make nice gifts.

Costco paper
 

Hi Michele,

I'm assuming since this is photo paper, it's glossy.

I've exhausted every way I know to find some glossy paper to print my notecards on, all the 'photo paper' I come across has a name printed diagonally across the back (like Epson, or Kodak). And most of it is very flimsy anyway, only as thick as a photo would be. So, I'm going to go to Costco here. Can you please tell me exactly the paper that works for you so I can get some? I think it should work on my printer since I got the same on you have. ;) In fact, I'll call Costco before I go to make sure they have the same thing here.

thank you,

Joan

"Kirkland" is Costco's own house brand. The stuff is called Kirkland Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper and you get 125 sheets for about $20.

Hi, Joan,

We are also Costco photo paper users (Epson 785EPX printer) and here are the specs:

4x6 69 lb. stock, Kirkland Signature professional glossy inkjet photo paper

8-1/2 x 11 68 lb. stock, Kirkland...etc.

Neither has anything printed on the back, are a nice bright white stock and very good quality. We have tried many brands also and are ecstatic with the price/quality of this one.

Hope this helps.
Carol

Paper
 

Dear Michele and Carol,

Thank you so much, yes, this helps tremendously! :exclamati And thank you both for such a quick respone to my question. Now . . . I just need to figure out how to get into Costco. Either tag along with a friend or I'll just join. It's so much fun to print out notecards, I can't wait to actually have some nice paper to print on!

Joan

Glad to be of help, Joan. Let us know how your cards turn out.

Carol

Thanks Carol. I will!

Joan