Gocco, you have my apologies

Doh!
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Dear sweet Gocco machine*, I'm sorry I ever spoke ill of you. You were never an ill device devised by the evil one at all, you just had a mealy old press bed that was keeping you down. Replace that and suddenly using you isn't hard at all, almost like you were designed to be used by Japanese children or something.

I've been goccoing a bit since getting the new bed (old bed pictured on the left after having been scraped off of the plastic base), but nothing I felt the desire to share. I've been using scraps from them in various collages and I will do the same with the ones from yesterday, but these deserve to be more of a focus than a background player. Also, I like the full design enough that I am going to get some black Moleskine cahier notebooks to print it on.







I knew that the bed was bad months ago but didn't act on it because I had talked myself into thinking Gocco wasn't right for me. Basically talked myself into an artistic box where I am a woodblock relief printmaker who can't draw well enough and doesn't like silkscreening. And that the supplies are too much money compared to what I am used to. That if I mess up a small block it is no big deal, but to screw up a screen is a tragedy.

Well, I guess I am more willing to push myself and take some chances these days. Because Gocco is great fun and a useful artistic tool that you will be seeing more from.

*gocco is a portable Japanese silkscreening device originally intended for children, but it has taken off in the arty/ crafty western community recently. Even though it is no longer being sold here and must be imported. Mine is over 20 years old but with a brand new bed. I hope there are stills supplies available for it when blee is old enough to play with it. And that they are cheap enough that I don't have to check her design for goccoworthiness too much.

the gocco gods hate me

Poppies for Gocco
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

I can't believe it is already Friday! This week sure did go by in a whirlwind. I hope you guys have more exciting plans than the no plans that I have. I'm just going to be hanging around the house with Jon making art when I feel up to it.

I bought a Gocco silkscreening kit for myself for my birthday this February because I found a used one for a killer price. But I was far too sick at the time to actually use it. When I did try using it about a month later my screen failed to burn properly, I got discouraged and put it aside. I would say away but is having it sit under my printing press really away? I just wasn't feeling inspired or motivated to use it and I didn't want to waste the expensive and hard to get supplies.

Then yesterday I got to thinking about it again and thought maybe if I adapted an older design that I knew that I liked I could make it work. Plus according to Heather Jeany who works pretty much only using Gocco I could make masters using black printouts from my HP inkjet. Normally people say only laserjet works but she uses her inkjet all the time with fantastic results. And we have the same printer so it should work for me too.

Well it didn't work for me too. The screen didn't burn at all. On the bright side all I wasted were bulbs and I have a lot more bulbs than I do screens. But for some reason my batch of black ink must not have enough carbon in it. After venting with her on the phone for awhile I remembered that Jon's office has a laser printer. So I sent him a copy of the image at the correct size and asked him to print me out a couple of copies of it. He had to work late but at least I should be goccoing by the next day.

I put the Gocco aside and did some successful but tiring woodblock printing. When he came home the prints were huge. He hadn't unclicked the option to stretch the image to fit the paper so it had indeed stretched the image to fit the paper and is totally useless for me. The gocco is a small machine for making things like greeting cards. I've heard certain pens have enough carbon in them to work but I don't want to risk it and will wait until I can get a good laser print.

This image is a photoshop mockup of what I want the final card to kind of look like. The blank cards I have are an orange called "poppy" of all things and my poppy image will be printed in a sparkly gold ink. Once the cards are dry they will be packaged in a rich chocolate colored envelope. If I ever get this to work I think they will look quite lovely!

I really wish I could work on this today and not wait until tomorrow. I need to find something else artistic to do with myself. If I am feeling brave I may print some more. It hurt like hell doing it yesterday but the rush of creating again felt so good!

Hopefully greeting cards will be appearing in my shop on Monday. Too bad I am totally out of categories and am going to have to be clever to find a way to make a section of them. I may have to kill the neat but disposable favorites section.