Information — Rachel Richards Art

Hi, I’m Rachel.

Thank you so much for taking the time to look over my work. While art has always been part of my life, it’s only now at this point, with the encouragement of my family and friends, that I am taking the plunge and sharing my work with a wider audience. I hope you have found a piece that moves you and maybe even moves you enough to invite it into your home / studio / workspace. If that’s the case, here’s a few nuggets of information.

Website Images

You may notice some subtle discrepancies between the images on the site from the Key Image and the images that are hung ‘In Situ’. The Key Image is always the truest representation of the Original Art and the Prints. These images have been photographed under studio conditions with balanced, neutral lighting with polarising filters to reduce reflections and glare.

Like many other artists, I use an app to demo my portfolio, these apps can be very smart and often add some environmental lighting effects to help embed the artwork into the overall picture. These look great and are primarily there to show the scale (the images are all scaled appropriately) and to offer inspiration as to the colour schemes, frames, mounts that I think look great with the artwork.

The Original Pieces

The drawback of selling art via a website is that you must be as neutral as possible in terms of lighting when photographing the work for display on the site. This is great for most fine art, but not so great for mixed media art. I use combinations of paint, ink, acrylic, varnish, gold leaf, copper, silver, paper, powder, card, fabrics, threads, sand, sprays, hardeners and setters.

Once hung in a room, with natural light, the art takes on a life of its own, changing through the day, reacting to the environment revealing ever shifting tones, shadows, textures, moods and depths.

Naming

Clearly, I have spent many hours with these pieces and fretted about giving them names as people often see what they see in them, and I don’t want to influence that. One of the things I love most about working in non-figurative abstracts is allowing the process to dictate the outcome. I work for a few hours, see where we go, step away, come back and see how we feel. I say we, because the process then becomes more like a conversation between me and the work. My mood can change, the work feels like it’s lacking in an area or wants to be louder in places. The light has changed, or something has influenced me since we last met. This has at times turned into a disagreement with the work where fundamental changes are required! In fact, many of the prints are earlier versions of the original artworks. So, the names I have given them are more about my process than any predetermined desire to paint a Secret or Patience.

Prints

For the majority of prints I have selected a Hahnemühle Metallic Photo Rag paper. This high-quality 340gsm paper feels solid and robust. It has a metallic silvery shimmering surface which really brings out the metallic elements used in the art pieces as well as the bold colours and deep blacks.

For others I have gone for PermaJet Fina Art Titanium Lustre. This 280gsm paper also highlights the reflective metal elements such as chrome, silver or gold.

For a few of the prints where I feel a matt finish works best to dive into the velvety blacks, I have gone for a Somerset Photo Satin paper at 300gsm.

I love all these papers, and they will deliver beautiful prints whichever print and size you go for.

Print Sizes

For simplicity, I am offering 3 sizes of prints. The 12 x 12 Inch / 12 x 16 Inch are around the size of an album cover (for those familiar with Vinyl Records). The 20 x 20 Inch /24 x 16 Inch are great for most domestic spaces as part of your gallery wall. The 40 x 40 Inch / 30 x 40 Inch Prints are real statement pieces and will command a space. These options should cover most needs, but if you have a more specific size in mind, then let me know, and I’m sure I can sort it for you. Each order is printed on demand. I don’t yet have the space or budget to hold stock at home.

Framing

For the original pieces, there is an option to purchase pre-framed. All the frames are floating box frames, meaning the artwork sits in the frame with a couple of millimetres around the canvas before the frame edge, giving the impression that the artwork is floating in the frame. There are literally hundreds of options out there for this at every level of quality and cost, I am only offering a basic black, white, gold and silver option to keep it simple. These will be ordered on demand, so if you have a particular frame in mind, get in touch and we can work it out.

I am not offering a framing service on the Prints. Most people have a very specific frame and mount size in mind and being a one-woman operation, I have decided to deliver only the prints at this time. Framing services are widely accessible online, though for the 40 x 40 Inch versions, you may need to seek out a specialist framing service.

Payment

Rachel Richards Art accepts the following payment methods:

· Visa (debit and credit cards)

· MasterCard (debit and credit cards)

· Apple Pay (Available through Safari and iOS)

By using this site www.rachelrichardsart.com all terms apply.

Rachel Richards Art refers to Rachel M. Richards of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. UK

Contact: info@rachelrichardsart.com

The artwork cannot be used for commercial purposes without written consent from the copyright owner.