Manhattan Group Publishers

MGP Limited Edition Art Prints

Original Giclée Prints
by Brian Skinner

Dream Blankets •• Masks •• Male Images •• Fort Tryon •• The Cloisters •• Works-in-Progress •• Catalogues

Original Giclée Prints

The images on the following pages each belongs to a series of illustrations on a particular theme or a similar source of inspiration.

Since 1985, when I bought my first humble computer, an Apple IIe with a Koala Drawing Tablet, the techniques I employed in my artwork led gradually away from the more conventional media of oils, watercolors, and acrylics to which I'd been accustomed.

In the next decade, as the technology for producing original images digitally grew by leaps and bounds, and my own skills developed, I found that at last I was working in a medium in which I felt completely comfortable. The route from inspiration to realization was fraught with fewer obstacles as I mastered the medium of computer illustration.

The technique of giclée (French for sprayed) blends technology with fine art. Inks applied by the giclée technique permit the use of highly textured papers, canvas, silk, and even leather, which are otherwise unsuitable for digital printing. The inks used are highly durable and true to the continuous tone, palettes, and saturation of the original illustration, thereby adding depth and richness to the print.

The Dream Blanket Series

The Dream Blanket Series had its origin in 1996 when I was hard at work on the 1997 Adams County Visitors' Guide. The Chamber of Commerce had decided at the last minute to include an article about the Winnebago Indian Museum, along with a picture. The privately owned museum was unable to provide any images for the article on such short notice and they suggested that, since I'm an artist, I should go ahead and devise something. There wasn't even time to get their approval before the Visitors' Guide went to press.

What came about for the article on the Winnebago Indian Museum occurred to me in a dream. It was an abstract design, but one employing Native American motifs. When asked what the design was, without hesitation I called it a "dream blanket." Thus began the Dream Blanket Series of twenty-six images which, in a sense, chronicled my life over the next two-and-a-half years.

The idea of a dream blanket is that you place a certain blanket on your bed in order to have a certain kind of dream. While I had the original intention of printing the dream blankets on large pieces of cloth, large enough to be used as a bedspread, I have had the opportunity thus far of printing only a few sections of dream blanket on cloth. The result was wonderful, but impractical at the moment. The process of giclée printing, however, enables me to realize the dream blankets on highly textured linen papers.

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