Lepp Institute: Printing & Mounting on Canvas Weekend Seminar

No equipment review this time as I spent the weekend at Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, California, which is right next to Morro Bay. Lepp Institute at http://www.leppphoto.com/ was created by George Lepp and is now owned and run by Victoria and Hal Schmitt (yup, two 't's) in concert with George. And this weekend, at my personal request, Hal & Victoria had their first canvas printing & stretching class. They have had several previous canvas classes taught by other instructors but they have done so much canvas work at the Institute for themselves and clients that they have become quite adept ... and for this first class in this new area they have simply outdone themselves. This is an image of the Digital Classroom taken from the instructors podium.

If you are interested in becoming familiar with the mysteries of printing on canvas and subsequent preparation and mounting on stretcher bars, this is a course for you, and they have several of these weekend wonders already on their schedule due to high demand. Hal & Victoria start with image optimization (in Photoshop) and work with you all the way out through gallery wrap expansion of your images including test prints on real canvas. The techniques and insights and experiences they share will save you days and weeks of heartache and problems ... they have had this experience for you! Below is the studio/canvas mounting area.

After test prints, you will make one or more "real" print images on canvas and then learn how to prep your images for stretching ... these images, prepared as "PremeirArt Nouveau Fine Art Prints" are true Giclee (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gicl%C3%A9e) prints and are simply stunning. We did both hand and machine stretching.

Now I've got to put in a word for Victoria ... several of the prints had some serious defects due to scanning ... one was covered in dust and hairs ... others picked up detritus during preparation ... Victoria stepped in with Photoshop and her fine paint brush and showed how to correct errors and problems. She is a real artist but is ever so modest (everyone who deals with Hal is modest, of course!)

So, after hands on learning about PremierArt Eco Print Shield application we all proceeded to prepare an image (or two), hand stretch and complete the process. I did my famous KISS performance collage (see below) and will be giving it to Wayne Hurte, my boss at the Chumash Casino Resort for his Condo renovation. In addition there were beautiful images of stored boats on a lake, a raptor, a gnarly old tree, a mother's portrait, a beach and others printed at this seminar, both color and Black-and-White (you would not believe how amazing B&W canvas prints are.)

If you either want to knock the socks off your photography friends or sell your work as fine art Giclee, you really need to make the time and effort to attend this class. It is under $500 (at this time) and you walk out with at least one canvas image that would retail for $450. There has never been such a bang-for-the-buck class in digital photography! You can read the Lepp Institute blog entry: Welcome to the Lepp Institute Blog: Canvas Printing and Finishing Workshop

I'm going to end this by saying that I am about to register for their weekend November 1-2, 2008, class which will be about shooting wineries and vineyards. And I have promised to attend a set of the weekend seminars for Photoshop so that I will finally get converted from my beloved PhotoImpact, sigh! :-)

Be Safe!

Dwight