PUBLICATION CENTER

Lizza Fine Art Studios, located in Tunkhannock, Pa., recently produced a monstrous project at Mount Airy Resort and Casino in the Poconos. Hanging up two stories inside the casino, Lizza Fine Art reproduced nine 8 ft. x 8 ft. panels on LexJet Sunset Select Matte Canvas.

The project began as a collaboration between the architect, Hemmler + Camayd Architects, and Laura Craig Gallery, who commissioned popular local artist Brian Keeler to render the Delaware Water Gap, which spans Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Keeler’s oil paintings, originally rendered at 3 ft. x 3 ft., were brought to Lizza Fine Art Studios for the Lizza treatment. The Lizza treatment includes capturing the original on its Cruse 5 ft. x 8 ft. flatbed scanner, a tight color-calibration system, the trained and discerning eye of owner Bob Lizza (who’s also a fine artist), and final printing on the studio’s Epson printers.

“We usually print normal giclee sizes, so it really pushed the envelope of what we typically do here. This was about a 280-300 percent enlargement from the originals, and the scanner played a big part in maintaining the quality of the paintings,” says Lizza.

Lizza explains that the original plan was to output the 8x8 canvas panels on the studio’s HP 5000 in two strips, which would meet in the middle and be stretched like a typical canvas gallery wrap. But about two days before the project was due the client decided they’d rather have better color fidelity, so the smaller Epson 9800 printer was called to the front lines.

“When they decided to go with three strips printed on the Epson we knew there would be too many visible seams if we were to stretch all three strips, so we applied the strips to flat panels instead,” says Lizza. “Our LexJet account specialist, Dustin Flowers, was a big part of the success of the project. He really pulled through for us. We already had the 60-in. Sunset Select Matte Canvas in stock, but we needed the 36-in. canvas the next day, as well as a re-supply of inks. Dustin did a quick shuffle, and we had the supplies to get the job done in time.”

Lizza adds that this type of project will be easier to produce in the future as the studio received shipment of two 64-in. wide Epson 11880s shortly after completing the casino project.

Once everything was in place and the strips printed, the flat boards which would hold the prints were primed to take the adhesive, 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. They first pre-placed the images, made register marks where each one would fit, applied the adhesive, and then applied the printed strips, taking special care not to get any of the adhesive on the prints.

“We ended up printing one-inch overlap on each strip with a crop mark. We did what wallpaper people do, which is line up the crops on both prints and make a slice right down the middle on that crop. We used a 120-in. straight edge trimmer and replaced the blade after each slice,” says Lizza.

Lizza also built the hanging hardware for the finished prints, and the installation went off without a hitch. There was some concern about the seams, but those concerns dissolved once the panels were hoisted two stories up by an installation crew as the viewing distance effectively eliminates the seams.

Another surprise – which could have been unpleasant, but turned out to be fortuitous – was the LED spectral lighting that shines on the prints. The lighting system slowly changes through the light spectrum, from cool to warm, during the course of the day.

“The light source changes the color of the prints, which in our market is usually not a good thing, but in this case it was a nice finishing touch because the scene appears to shift from dawn to dusk,” says Lizza.