the pigment transfer printing process, also known as the colour carbon process, falls into the realm of handmade alternative printmaking involving the transfer of sensitized pigmented gelatin onto watercolour paper. carbon prints require a highly skilled artisan to create each print and are sought by collectors for each prints’ uniqueness, lightfastness, and quality. while quite popular a hundred years ago, there’s only one person alive today who makes a living producing these prints: the master print maker mr. calvin grier, in valencia, spain.  

we are offering our art as colour carbon prints solely to create true artworks of value to the collector. to do so, the artist has chosen calvin because he follows a compass directed at creativity, effort, skill, irreproducibility, and historical and social knowledge of the printing process and its meaning to the art. 

these prints are exceptionally difficult to achieve good results with – if any of the hundred things go wrong the process has to be started all over again – but when a successful print is made, it is unlike any other photographic process: there is *life* in the print. it is for this reason alone that the artist has chosen colour carbon transfer as his preferred process to retain *life* he saw in the object … in the print. 

each work of art takes about a week to make, requiring multiple coloured emulsions, sensitized to ultraviolet light, carefully exposed, developed, and transferred on a temporary substrate. when all colours have been exposed and transferred, the temporary support must then be transferred to a final archival watercolor paper. this is a very delicate process, and failure is possible at any point through the printmaking process. 

because of the pigments used, like quality oil paintings, the prints are extremely stable and collectible, as they will last longer than any other photographic print, so generations to come can value the artwork.  

select photographs are available as hand printed colour carbon transfer prints priced at usd 500,000 each with image size 1050x850mm/41×33.5” on paper that is 1520x1020mm/60×40”.

for more information about colour carbon transfer printing and the master print maker calvin grier, please, kindly, visit his website: thewetprint.com