everything I know about Gocco

Today I'm going to bring you a rather long post, the wonderful gritty details of our Gocco experience. When I say "our", the Gocco machine actually belongs to my older sister, Celeste, who bought the machine last year at this time to spice up Bamboo Village Press, her Etsy shop, with printed paper goods. Since opening my own shop on Etsy the following November, I've gotten so much guidance from my wonderful sister that I forget sometimes there are people out there maneuvering the craft world or Etsy on their own.

So, here is any tips and sites from our experience that have come in very handy while thinking about setting off on a Gocco adventure! ***This is also my first attempt to edit my own HTML so that links open in a new window. If something doesn't work, let me know and I'll try to fix it/ get you the link. :)

The best site on the web for an introduction to Gocco is probably Save Gocco. This will give you the whole background and history behind the machine, and the campaign to keep RISO from taking them off the market. What they are are essentially silkscreen kits designed to fit in your home and be cleaner/ easier to use than using the press & squeegee method. I've done some home silk screening (wooden frame and tubs of ink) as well as printmaking in college and other than the questionably toxic bulbs that Gocco requires to create the screen image for you, I agree it is much cleaner/ easier.

(However, if you can help me to get my house to look like this... I would be really very grateful!)

The process is simple: you start with an image you want to use for your print and transfer this image (either using a Micron Pigma, carbon pen, or photocopy) to sized paper sheets Gocco provides you. This rests on the bottom of the machine. The upper most part of the frame has your screen and a removable bulb case that, when pressed down (as though you were making a stamp) will activate the bulbs and transfer the darks of your drawn image to the screen. Now you no longer need the paper drawing. Once you have made your screen you remove the bulb case, lay ink down over the dark transfered lines of your screen, and proceed to stamp away!

• One of the things I really love about this particular way of printing is that your transfered image is not backwards. It took some getting used to, since I was used to printmaking, but really it is so easy not to have to plan in reverse!

• What I've noticed a lot of fascinating and design savvy Gocco users will do is plot out their 2 or 3 color designs on a computer first. This way it is much easier to plot out how to proceed if your end image will have more than one color.

Our Gocco machine is a pg6. The pg6 is the largest Gocco model and my sister got this one in order to easier print on fabric. The pg6 measures 15.7"x 18.1" (our microwave, for example, is smaller) but it is pretty lightweight and the screens themselves can print an image almost as big as a normal 8 x 10 sheet of paper.

After printing with the pg6 for the last 6 months, I am eager to try out the smaller stamp Gocco, like this pg5. Why? well, the base of our printer is designed to move with the pressure you apply. This is a good thing considering you are smooshing ink through a screen, but can be tricky around the edges of such a large area if you have many images on one screen. Doing my own research about my favorite Gocco artists (mostly from Etsy, but Flickr is wonderful for Gocco info) I find that many people are using the smaller stamp models.

Now, lastly, let's be really honest about how expensive these little guys are. Our pg6 came from one of my favorite stationary suppliers, Paper Source. I fully trust them and their customer service is great, but they are on the high end of craft suppliers. Along with another set of supplies, bulbs, and shipping, the entire cost was almost $500.00. This does not include the cost of what you will be printing on. When I first started printing on paper, I would say about 1/3 attempts turned out to be mis-prints or not good enough for sale.

Also, despite the size of our printer, I have to date not successfully printed on fabric. Celeste has done some beautiful images which leads me to believe it is easier with bolder, thicker designs if you are going to tackle fabric (see above). But, she had a couple of hiccups with these cloth bound journals, so you have to factor in your supplies as well as whether your supplies work against you while considering the long-term costs.

If you still want to get a Gocco, my suggestion would be to practice, practice, practice with your basic inks and one color printing before expanding. Our secret weapon for supplies is Welsh Products, who seem to be a small company (you have to email your customer order to them) and are really friendly, helpful, reasonably priced. Shipping takes about a week, slower than most, but if you plan ahead its a company worth supporting. Lastly, there are constant discussions about Gocco in forums, both on Etsy and Flickr. Countless groups on both these communities, as well as IndiePublic, MySpace, Facebook, and even Yahoo are fantastic resources when you jump in!

I'll do my best to answer any other questions as they come up, but otherwise the very best of luck to all of you:

LOVE YOUR GOCCO!

Everything Day & What Inspires You?

Today has been one of those Everything Days where it seems like every 30 minutes to an hour I'm off doing something different. Let's see if I have the attention span to get a blog post done:

Today's listing in a week of listing (forgot yesterday, so maybe I'll sneak one in tonight after my internet cut-off) is a collection of Gocco printed envelopes. I think I mentioned my serious addiction to paper goods a few entries ago... well it actually has worked out in my favor, really it has, since I've been using those precious papers for "extra ink" printings. I've amassed quite a collection by now and listed a grab-bag type collection today in the shop. I figure someone out there still writes letters. yes?
...yes?

This girl and lion have been kicking around my room for months. She was actually going to be the beginning of my alphabet series, but then I decided to watercolor those. Its weird because I have a strong desire to see this pattern on a pillow* but may offer her as an iron-on in the shop along with other not-on-card designs.
(*this information is useful later) Still need to broaden that DIY section, as the secret project for it won't be unveiled until late summer or fall. What do you think... is she iron-on material? Hmm...

Other than that today was more mailing and further sketches for a sticker project that is way off in the distance. In the afternoon I spontaneously went along with my sis to Philadelphia for one of her doctor visits and am lucky I did because we got to see another ultrasound! Thats just the most amazing thing.

I came home to a wonderful email from Amy over at Pikaland, who has set up a barter system for her ad space that I think is a great way to get people involved. I'm participating in a more free-form version since I don't yet know when my shop will re-open but still have all the proper information to fill out. One of her interview questions is "What inspires you?". I thought this would be a fun addition to the blog. I've spotlighted artists and Etsyians here before, but to take maybe a subject instead?

So this week I'll begin in textiles, with embroidery. Embroidery is something I've been wanting to get back into for the past 2 years. Its showing up everywhere in the fine art world and a beautiful canvas for the minimal art people are creating currently. Above is Littlebonbon by Takashi Iwasaki, whose images set off all those energized synapses in my brain.

Flickr has tons of groups for the embroidery nerd in me: check out embroidery and science! But one with a bright future is Children's Embroidery, where I got the above picture from. Check out this guy- I love it that children's embroidery ends up looking the same as their Crayola drawings. Way to be! Embroidery would also be a fun project to get that girl and lion on a pillow- but I'm gonna need some granny glasses before agreeing to that mission!

Teeny Insomnia

Tuesday and I'm just about all caught up with the mailing, finally! This will just be a quick post as I think I may be posting another entry tonight. For now, I'm just eager to get the organizational tasks under control and really looking forward to some good solid hours drawing. I've been working on these little neighborhoods... fun to draw... but also I owe one of my friends a new design, too. Ideas kept me up all night last night, and what do you do at 3 a.m... get up? So here I am, catching up with myself.

In the rest of the world of fun news, did you know theres a parallel moving story going on? The amazing Kitty Genius, Ashley G, just recently announced on her blog that she and her beau are picking up and moving out to Portland, OR in (you guessed it) May! I'm a huge fan of her work and she has one of the best written Profiles in all of Etsydom. So strange to read her blog and think, "Wow, am I really doing that too?".

In OUOU news, Sophie made an cameo yesterday in the indie shopping site Wickedly Chic. Thanks, guys! Scroll down a bit and you'll see cards from Macaroni and Glue, too. Its always great to see a familiar face. :) A little pic of "ouou loveliness" showed up on King Carmen's photo stream over on Flickr the other day: so cool. I go over there and just stare at this pic for long moments- such incredible work and 3D books just rock the free world. Seriously.

typical sunday

It has been a typical Sunday: sleeping in, rainy drizzle outside, I'm drinking a little too much coffee, staying in my jammies too long while watching Meet the Press, about to begin some Gocco prints before making a stir-fry for lunch.

I admit, last week I took a break from the blog due to a crazy amount of stress. Several of the blogs I follow confessed to general grumpiness, too, so I feel a little better about admitting that. Thursday I went to downtown Philadelphia to get out of this suburban-stuck feeling. We are packing up and moving in 43 days (!!) and very, very restless. Spring is here, adding to this sense of muscle-stretching, leaf-turning urgency. I had the camera with me, here are some photographs from around Rittenhouse Square, before I tucked away in a bookstore and spent the afternoon hours doodling:




I've started putting sketches from my notebooks into Flickr, I prefer pencil to anything else... it is just the most basic and satisfying medium.
I hope we have time on the road trip to get photos of the experience! I'm a bit of a home-body and have never done anything like this before (2 years ago at 27 was the first time I'd ever been on a plane!), but first it seemed fitting to add some of Philly. I just tried out this tool for making mosaics ... what a charming little collage of my winter!