Painting Reproduction with Colour Laser Printer

When an artist creates a painting, it is usually sold exclusively to a single person. It’s quite uncommon to hear artists making copies of paintings to be sold to multiple people. Usually paintings get reproduced in printing factories using large format printing machines and screen printers. But, Phyllis Seltzer has been reproducing her paintings at her studio using a colour laser printer. She follows a process called Electrostatic and Heat Transfer Printing Method which was devised by Masaki Yoshino of Japan.

Here’s a rundown of the reproduction process: Once the painting is complete, several grids are drawn depending on the size of the painting. The final byproduct could be made up by a number of pieces fitted together as a collage. The painting is laid flat on the flat bed copier and the printer is fed with heat transfer paper coated with an emulsion which absorbs and holds the colours via an electrically-charged field. After the images are transferred, they are trimmed and conjoined with the other parts of the painting thus reproducing the image.

After securing the heat transfer sheets to the paper with a tacking iron, they are placed in a heated press at approximately 325 degrees Farenheit. It takes about ten minutes for the emulsion to transfer onto the paper. When the process is complete, the heat transfer sheets are carefully peeled back.

This process of reproducing paintings is found to be stable over a long run. Moreover, the reproduction can take place at the comfort of a home or a studio.