What's Goccoing On?

Documents my on-going gocco projects. This page was started in Feb, 2006, but in September 2006, I started a studio diary on blogspot. Since then, I've documented my gocco projects at both places. But that really doesn't make sense, so Goccoing On is being folded into my studio diary. To read the gocco related entries on my studio diary, click here; to read the whole studio diary, click here.

Many of the photos here, especially the earlier ones, are not on the studio diary, so you may be interested in a quick scroll through here anyhow.

For information about Print Gocco being discontinued, please see www.savegocco.com.

Mar 26, 2007 – Goccoing On has moved to here.

It just doesn't make sense to maintain this myself anymore, when my studio diary on blogspot already covers the territory. The above link will take you to the page of gocco-related entries in my studio diary. If you're interested in reading the whole studio diary, then click here, if you just want to read the gocco projects, then click here.

Feb 21, 2007 – Almost finished.

I have actually been working on my book and printing, I just hadn't taken any good pictures to show for this page, until tonight. I printed the title (Calypso) on the plexi cover in white, see picture. And over the white paper, it will cast a shadow against which the letters will show. For more images, see my studio diary on blogspot.

The plexi is held over some foam core in the photo.

This is another image of 'the couple', intentionally marred up.

Feb 12, 2007 – Back to printing, after a few days hiatus.

When the critique group met, the feed back was that it was not obvious that those little pans of colors were containers of eye shadows. I liked the suggested fix, so here's the printed result. The silvery blue rounds are printed pretty solidly, but because it's a metallic ink, and I'm using the flash at close range, it looking like it's got missing bits and pieces.

The overprint is also not so obvious in real life.

Also, here's an example of a touch up job -- the 'S' in 'Spring Leaf' was missing the lower part, I filled it in by hand. For more images, see my studio diary on blogspot.

Here's the Allure/Desire page drying on the guest bed. I ran out of space on the drying rack.

Feb 8, 2007 – Calypso continued...

The fake Estee Lauder logo at the top required quite a bit of touching up. I'm starting to get pretty good at that. It's similar to photo retouching -- use a very dry brush with barest amount of ink on there, and slowly dab in to fill the holes. On the very end of the curlicue on the left, there was a big hole that did not flash, and I manually filled it in with a brush. For more images, see my studio diary on blogspot.

This page is still missing the fake Elizabeth Arden logo at the top.

Feb 7, 2007 – Calypso

Here's 1 of the probably 7 screens that will be necessary to print this book. For more images, see my studio diary on blogspot.

Here's the shadow 'Sexy' and the 2 roses printed.

Feb 6, 2007 – Calypso, from the opening page, with a page missing in the middle

Feb 5, 2007 – A new artist's book, Calypso

I just started printing my new artist's book, which I've been working on since last November or so. There's been a lot of experimenting and playing around with new materials. The book will be covered in plexi and, besides Print Gocco, will use eye shadows as a pigment. Here are some images of the printing process and first day's results.

There's a sheet of mylar on the print bed, that's my registration guide. Under the mylar is my page template, it's the identical width of my finished book and same height as the height of the paper, which will be trimmed down to give me a bleed print.

This is the opening page (the 4 little pans of eye shadows on the left) and the next page ('Beautiful'). The colors are all custom mixed. This will be an 18 page accordion book when finished.

There are more photos on my studio diary on blogspot.

Nov 22, 2006 – The fall issue of Pudding, and it's No. 20!

A while ago, I flashed a previously used screen that had some unused real estate on it. And much to my surprise, where the screen was stained with the green ink, it flashed through, thus rendering both the old design and new design unusable. So this issue of Pudding tries some of the darker Riso inks for Gocco to see which of them will flash through.

The photo shows both the original that I used to flash the screen (on the right, labeled ink stains) and the resulting print (on the left). There are a few surprises and I'll discuss those in the tech notes. The issue should be in the mail by next Monday (Nov 27) at the latest.

Aug 1, 2006 – and a LONG time later, I finally finished the mini prints that I started in April...

The colors are off...these were taken with Photobooth, with haphazard lighting. But the image on the left is the same print as the one shown on April 23, with another layer added (the line drawing). The image on the right is truer to the colors of the actual print.

Aug 1, 2006 – Fatherland gets in the Centennial Celebration exhibit of GBW

I am thrilled to be part of this exhibit, and they took a fabulous photo of my book. You can see all the books in the exhibit by clicking through all the names on their web site.

April 28, 2006 – some fun mini prints that I'm starting

I was very inspired by some of the work done at the last workshop I taught (in Seattle for the Calligraphy Guild) that I decided to try what students have to do in a workshop situation like that -- no computers, just the photocopier, and work on a small scale. I've also been collecting interesting images out of Natural History magazine for 20+ years and decided this would be a good time to try using them.

After spending 2 hours at Kinko's, I had a pile of photocopies. Using my lightbox and cropping L's, I started putting things together. So this is the start of my first print -- 2 layers, in pastel green with watercolor blue layered on top.

I was able to reuse this screen that I had made for Fatherland (see below Feb 14, 2006). It was flashed with a solid black, so all of the emulsion was removed. I could then use simple paper stencils to block out large color areas, like the rock shapes, and the concave shape; you can still see the color stains on the screen.

For this print, I blocked out a 5"x5" area and printed a solid area in watercolor blue. I printed it *very* lightly, I wanted the color to just barely come out at all, and in fact, if it was uneven, that was the best. You can't really see it in this photo, but I was able to get a mottled look so that the colors ranged from yellow-green to blue-green, and then of course the watercolor blue.

This print will have another layer on top, probably a line drawing of some kind. But that won't happen until after the weekend.

March 31, 2006 – the Jan/06 and March/06 issues of Pudding, finally...

The Jan/06 issue of Pudding never got out, so did both issues this week. Both are paper + pressure tests. They should be shipped out in Monday's mail.

Feb 24, 2006 – finished book, plus 2 prints about ready for a show in March.

Fatherland, an accordion book, cover and back shots; this is the book that I've been working on since the end of Jan/2006 (scroll down to see more photos of the book in progress). The 2 prints are about ready for a show in March/2006 at Print Arts Northwest; they're also gocco printed (CMYK); the long print was printed in 2 sections to get the size I wanted (6" wide by 16" high).

Feb 14, 2006 – getting really close...

Two of the pages from the book. I just need to print the title for the cover, make the slip case, and it's finished. This is gocco printed, with holes burnt through the pages using a soldering iron.

Feb 10, 2006 – almost finished

Here they are...lined up on the homemade print drying rack.

Feb 9, 2006 – A few more layers later

I've added some photographs taken in Taiwan, some shapes in yellow, and also some of the text. Hopefully, 3 more days of printing and the printing part will be finished. This has taken 3 B5 screens to print.

The left section:

The right section:

Feb 4, 2006 – if you're down to your last screen...

In a (extreme) departure from the way I normally work, where everything is mocked up, I know exactly what colors I'd use, etc, etc, I'm just winging it on this one. I did spend a few weeks working on several mockups, deciding that I didn't like any of them, chucked them all and started printing with only the barest ideas of what I was doing.

So this will be an accordion book, printed in 2 sections.

The left section:

The right section:

The fun part about this, so far, is that all of this has been printed with 1 screen.

I flashed a single B5 screen with a solid black laser printer output; I know, I probably could have just used sticky tape to remove the emulsion all together, but I was hoping to have soft edges that I could use to my advantage.

Anyhow, since all the shapes are large and simple, I just cut out paper stencils and used glue stick to glue them to the ink side of the screen, inked up, and printed.

It's still a learning experience at this point, but I imagine this can work quite well for certain things.

They will be joined together like this: