Michelle A. Hegyi

Gardens of Love and Fire

June 24 - August 10, 2008

WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor, Michigan www.wsg-art.com

The technique, the prints, and the editions

Michelle's digital paintings in this show are created using the natural media painting software Painter by Corel -- "an entire art store brought within the confines of the computer" -- to paint directly on the computer. She uses a tablet and pressure sensitive pen, allowing the size of the brushstroke to vary with the pressure applied to the tablet, just as in real painting.  Using the Painter program, the cordless pen can be used to "paint" with pre-defined mediums in the Painter palette, such as chalk, oil, pastel, watercolor, ink, pencil, or even with mediums that she creates herself on the computer, on an infinite number of textured substrates, eg canvas, silk, watercolor paper, made-up textured papers, etc...  Michelle then uses an enormous number of layers in Photoshop to collage these digital paintings with "real" acrylic or encaustic brushstrokes by scanning in textures created using "real" paint.

The "original" of these works is a digital image file that resides in the computer. To transform this image into a work on paper, Ms. Hegyi prints it out on her own wide format Epson 9800 inkjet printer using Epson Ultrachrome K3  pigment inks on heavyweight 100% rag paper (Hahnemuhle's Photorag 308gsm).  Michelle also uses other inkjet papers, including in this show, Moab's new lightweight Moenkopi inkjet-coated Japanese paper Unryu 55 and Kozo 110 both of which she has sealed with acrylic medium.    Michelle has complete control over color and any other aspects of print production as she creates her own profiles of the ink and paper combinations using a hardware spectrophotometer and Eye-One software.

She makes her own signed, numbered, limited editions, now in editions of 10 or less.  The original digital files are maintained permanently.  Prints are made only as needed.  Future prints may not be printed on the same paper or with the same technique, and the edition may never reach the maximum number of prints.  Also, prints may be offered at different sizes within an edition.