Malibu Creek: After the Rain, Digital Print

Katherine Kean Malibu Creek: After the Rain watercolor 3.75 x 6.76"

This abstracted little watercolor was painted on sight at Malibu Creek on a Saturday morning after a very heavy rain. Malibu Creek is usually, in my experience, a slow moving creek, more of a reflecting pool than a raging river. But on this day it was rushing along and carrying loads of debris; branches and leaves being carried off in the fast, turbulent, current. It was cold and I was working quickly and just as I finished it started to rain.

The original watercolor sketch - a page torn from my Aquabee sketchbook - is hanging in my house, framed with the spiral binder holes showing, acknowledging the immediacy of the moment. There is something about it, the size, the motion, or maybe the the torn spiral binder holes, that has made me want to hang onto it, so I've never offered it for sale. However, a matted and framed archival giclee print is currently available at TAG Gallery.

This is an "open" edition, by the way. I've only made one print of this (so far), but I may make more. I don't really comprehend the point of a limited edition digital print. The idea of having a limited edition does apply, in my mind, if the printing process involves an actual plate, like a woodcut, for example. During the printing process using an actual physcial plate the printing process does wear the plate down, limiting the number of prints that can be made, thus a limited edition is a way of preserving the quality of the print. Also, the closer to the beginning of the process the print is, the better the quality, so the number of the print has real meaning. In a digital print there is no plate and theoretically an endless number of prints could be made with no loss of quality to the image. Furthermore if an image is in high demand why would an artist want to put a limit on their potential sales of that image? So, there. That's my rant on limited edition digital prints.