Wasting time is precisely the challenge Richard Forschino, owner of Coastal Giclee and Supplies, was facing when his fine art reproduction business in Carmel, California, grew and demanded faster production. He recognized that opportunity was knocking at his door, and something had to change with his workflow to accommodate his new business stream.

Before he started his business, Richard and his wife, Delia Bradford, a well-known Impressionist artist, invested in costly printed art to be sold at art shows and festivals. At their first event, Richard recalls, “It started to drizzle, and the ink ran off the canvases that we spent a lot of money for. So, we started researching equipment and the process.” What many may see as a significant setback and unfortunate event, Richard and Delia looked for the silver lining that turned out to be a profitable business opportunity.

In the early days of his printing business, Richard relied on the equipment and media that were available at the time. He remembers the old media “had to be coated before being stretched. It was a huge process, very labor intensive… I had a flood coater. You had to print a whole roll at a time… it was costly.”

He also remembers the difficulty with the old printers during cold weather.  When the canvas got cold, the preheater warmed up the canvas, and certain ones would bubble up, causing head strikes. After some growing pains and time, Richard discovered EPSON’s introduction of an eco-solvent printer into the market, and he knew this was the solution he had been waiting for.

Richard invests in the EPSON line of printers and raves about the performance and speed of the SureColor^® S80600 and its impact on his shop’s productivity and workflow. “It runs like a champ…This one’s phenomenal.”

He also discovered the Elements Polished Bianco Bright White Gloss Canvas SUV, which turned out to be a winning combination, “It’s just print and go and stretch and go. The Polished Bianco has the added feature of drying very, very quickly, we don’t have to wait very long.” The Polished Bianco has become Richard’s go-to canvas for his business and Delia’s art gallery. “It has a really nice, rich gloss level… color gamut is amazing… I’m not seeing any pulled threads through the canvas, which I’ve found in the past in many other brands.”

Coastal Giclee and Supplies has enjoyed tremendous success with the EPSON^® SureColor^® S80600 printer and Elements Polished Bianco Canvas, giving Richard and his staff the ability to provide high-quality art prints to artists, photographers, companies on the west coast and Hawaii, as well as local customers.

Richard and Delia could have allowed that rainy day to put a damper on their future plans, but instead, they used that experience as an opportunity to search for a solution that changed their business forecast for decades!

To learn more about the EPSON line of printers and our Elements Portfolio, click below or contact a LexJet Customer Specialist at 800-453-9538 or visit LexJet.com.