A few weeks ago I wrote about discovering one of the drawings my dad did for me when I was little, click here if you missed that post. I said I was thinking of turning it into a Gocco print, and that’s exactly what I did.
The original drawing is very small, just a little bigger than a credit card, so when I enlarged it the details were really fuzzy. I therefore had to do some work on it to redefine the details and make sure it would produce clean lines in the Gocco process. It took a while, but I got there eventually and produced a limited run of prints.
There are ten available in this green ink, on watercolour paper. Each print is signed and numbered on the back. Click here to see the Etsy listing.
I’ve branched out into modifying Moleskine cahiers. People often ask me if I make books with lined (ruled) pages, and the answer is that I don’t… but hopefully these little pocket-sized Moleskines will suit those who like structure to their writing.
Original design gocco printed in red ink. These notebooks measure 9cm x 14cm and have 64 pages. Click here to see them in my Etsy shop. I was able to get a good deal when buying this batch of cahiers so I’ve priced them quite cheaply for now – snap them up while you can, the next batch might be more expensive!
A few people have asked how Print Gocco works, and although there are lots of gocco resources and tutorials on the internet already I figure it can’t hurt to add one of my own. This is a very rough guide, and I’ve cobbled together the photos from several different sessions (I get too absorbed to remember to take photos throughout an entire session…), but hopefully you’ll find it educational.
Step 1
The first thing you need to do is prepare your artwork. In order to produce a master (jargon alert – a master is the screen which you create and then use to do all your printing) you need a correctly sized image which contains carbon. I either photocopy my original image (photocopies contain carbon) or I draw the image using a RISO carbon pen (RISO is the company who used to produce Gocco equipment and materials). I’m having a bit of a hit-and-miss thing with photocopies at the moment: some yield a perfect result and others end up producing an imperfect screen, and so far I’ve not been able to work out why. It’s infuriating.
Inking over my pencil-drawn original with RISO carbon ink.
Step 2
Once you’ve got your image ready you need to position it in your Gocco machine.
Positioning the image and checking its position through the glass
Take your time with this, and put a blank piece of card between your image and the print bed to ensure your image is exposed cleanly (sometimes the criss-cross markings on the print bed can affect your image).
Insert your blank master screen into the machine
Step 3
Check that you’ve put batteries in (try and use fresh ones, I only use batteries twice in the gocco before changing to a new set in case they don’t have enough juice to flash the bulbs properly). Put bulbs into your exposure unit (and rub the contact points on paper to clean them before you fit them into the unit). Ready?…
Had to go with a little video for that as it’s incredibly difficult to capture the moment of the flash with a photograph! Your master screen is created when the heat from the bulbs causes the carbon in your image to burn through the emulsion on the screen. This leaves areas of the screen where ink can pass through, thus allowing you to print your image.
Step 4
Once you’ve got over the excitement of creating your master you’re almost ready to start printing. Gocco ink is expensive and also a finite resource as the company isn’t making it any more, so to minimise wastage you need to block off the areas of your master that don’t need ink.
Block around the outside of your image to prevent ink from spreading too far
There is official RISO ink blocking available, but the lovely Xtina Lamb taught me that cheap and cheerful sticky-backed foam sheets work better. Cut it into strips and use it to surround your image, this prevents the ink from spreading right out to the edges of the master. If you’re using multiple colours on a single print then you can use the blocking to prevent the colours bleeding into each other (although the bleeding might actually be a desirable effect, depending on the image).
Blocking can help prevent different coloured inks from bleeding into each other
It doesn’t always go well. This was my first attempt at using multiple inks on one screen and the red was inexplicably more oily and runny than the other colours so it seeped under the blocking after a few prints. I had to clean the whole lot off and start again!
Step 5
Once your screen is blocked, and inked, you’re ready to start printing! This really is easy, you insert your inked screen back into the Gocco machine (having removed the exposure unit containing the bulbs first), place some paper or card on the print bed, then lower the lid and apply pressure. Lift lid, remove print, repeat. The amount of pressure you need to use will vary and it’s trial and error: use too much pressure and too much ink will come through and result in a messy print… use too little pressure and the print will be faint.
Prints drying in a rack
Cards drying on a line
The prints take ages to dry properly, so ensure you’ve got somewhere safe to put them all where they won’t get smudged. I’ve got some RISO racks, and have also rigged up some lines of string in my studio so that I can hang cards out of the way above my head. This has turned out to be a good solution as it frees up my desk space so I can keep working on other things, and of course they look kind of pretty all hung up like bunting!
The ink goes a surprisingly long way, so make sure you’ve got lots of cards to print onto – once you’ve got started you might as well make 100 as make 10. The clean up will take the same amount of time, so you might as well get lots printed before you start the painstaking cleaning of the screen.
No photos of this as I’m generally covered in ink, but you should aim to save as much of the ink as possible (it’s expensive, remember?). Scrape it off with a palette knife, or similar, and pop it into a tub or plastic ink cone (a bit like a very small piping bag) – make sure that your container is airtight. After you’ve salvaged as much ink as possible start cleaning the screen by placing it onto a bit of kitchen roll and gently dabbing it with kitchen roll (or J cloth, or something else that doesn’t leave fluff everywhere). Keep going (changing the kitchen roll beneath the screen at intervals as and when it becomes too inky) until you’ve got as much off as possible, then use the RISO screen cleaner to get the last bits of ink out (I actually use Zest-It, a solvent, as it seems to work better, but I do use the RISO stuff at the end to help preserve the screen).
So that’s it, a very rough guide to Gocco. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and if you’ve got any questions then please ask
The underside of a master, showing the ink coming through
Since getting started with print gocco I’ve been experimenting and trying to find as many uses for it as possible. I’ve printed cards, but what else? Well, I managed to pick up a gocco cloth kit on eBay for not much money…
…so the next step was clearly going to be printing something on cloth. But what to print? I’m having a stall at a fair in Colchester next weekend and suddenly inspiration struck: tote bags.
I was tempted to make my own bags from scratch, but in the end decided that it would be far more sensible (and cost/time effective) to just buy some. 25 mini eco cotton totes were therefore ordered, and they arrived on Friday. I decided to use one of my existing gocco designs for these as I wasn’t sure how well they’d turn out and I didn’t fancy coming up with a whole new design only to be disappointed.
Thankfully it went well! My first print (above) was nerve-wracking as I didn’t have a clue whether I was using enough pressure (or too much!)… but thankfully the gocco cloth printing seems to be fairly idiot-proof and all went smoothly.
I printed all the bags, hung them up to dry for a few hours, and then ironed them to set the ink. The design came out well on the fabric and pretty much all the detail of the design shows up beautifully (I was a bit worried the ink would bleed, but thankfully it didn’t).
These bags will be available for purchase in my Etsy shop from this week, and if demand is good then I’ll see about making some more with a different design.
The bags measure approximately 8×10 inches (20 x 25cm) excluding the handles. If you’re interested in ordering bags with a custom design on them then please use the contact page to send me an e-mail.
…I started a project that I just could not put down. On Sunday I started working on a new design to print using gocco (after getting very carried away printing cards last week), and I fully intended to work on it over the course of this week, with the aim being to finish it by Sunday.
Well… here’s how my Monday morning went…
I was very hunch-backed by the time I’d finished inking in the last of the design and probably should have called it a day at that point, but I couldn’t help myself and I was dying to see how it would come out on the gocco…
…as you can see, the master screen burned very nicely! Then, of course, I just had to try printing some cards… and then, once I had the ink on the screen, it made sense to keep printing until I ran out of cards…
I can’t say I’m sorry that I kept on pegging away at this, because I’m incredibly pleased with the results. The design has come out exactly as I pictured it in my head, and I think it works nicely on the cards. I think it might also work well as a design for wrapping paper, but that will be a project for another day.
You might remember that, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a print gocco workshop run by Xtina Lamb. I really enjoyed the workshop and fell completely in love with print gocco. Since then I’ve been thinking of designs (and buying up as many supplies as I can afford), and this week my plotting bore fruit and I now have a small range of cards available in my Etsy shop.
At the moment I have three designs: a birthday card , an illustration of a dandelion clock (entitled ‘Make a Wish’ ), and a playful illustration of a pup. Three very different styles, but I’ve been bubbling with ideas and couldn’t settle on just one style just now so I did a bit of everything! I’m planning to add more designs to the range but will probably wait another month or so before doing that (need to sell the cards I’ve already made first!).
You may remember that, a while back, I bought a Gocco printer. Well, that was all very grand but I didn’t have a clue what to do with it until Kirsty (of The Leopard Anchor) gave me a heads up that Xtina Lamb was running another print Gocco workshop. I immediately treated myself to a place at the workshop (very reasonably priced at £40 for a three hour evening workshop).
I’d been looking forward to it very much, and therefore cannot understand how I managed to forget the date. Seriously, I was mortified (and furious with myself) on Wednesday evening to realise that I should have been over in east London instead of being collapsed on the sofa after finishing work. I’ve never missed an appointment in my life, how on earth did this happen?!
I fired off an e-mail to Xtina to apologise for my absence, explain myself, and ask very nicely if it was at all possible for me to attend the workshop another time instead. To my gratified astonishment I woke up on Thursday morning to find that she’d replied, and that she was happy for me to come down to Craft Central that day instead for some one-to-one tuition. Phew!
I gathered up the artwork I’d prepared (when booking a place on one of Xtina’s workshops you’re asked to bring some artwork from which to create your Gocco template) and made my way across London. Upon arrival I found that Craft Central’s showcase suite, where Xtina is currently holding an open studio during the day as well as workshops in the evening, is a great space. Airy and well lit there are glass cabinets in which artists can display their work.
This week the cabinets are home to a selection of Xtina’s work, and the eye is treated to a feast of colour in products ranging from cards to bunting to temporary tattoos.
Xtina greeted me warmly, made me a cup of tea, and we sat and chatted for a while with a friend (and fellow artist) of hers who happened to arrive at the same time as me. After her friend left she took me through the basics of print Gocco, showing me the different types of machine (and the differences between them), and explaining how the print process works.
I found it really interesting learning the ins and outs of the process. From the inital selection of which image to use (some images are better suited to the process than others, and as the screens and bulbs are expensive it’s important to choose wisely lest you waste valuable resources), to creating the master screen, to the actual printing. Xtina was happy to pass on useful tips, things which probably aren’t covered in instruction manuals but which will prove invaluable to a new user like me.
I’d taken a few different styles of artwork with me and Xtina helped me decide which would be most suitable: it turned out to be the cherry blossom (which is pretty apt given the time of year!). Exposing the screen and seeing the flash of light from the machine was very exciting!
It took a few goes before I got a perfect print (I was too sparing with the ink initially…), but look how well it came out!
It’s quite a delicate drawing with lots of fine lines and little details, and I’m still amazed at how well the Gocco system handles that level of detail.
I played around for a while, printing my design onto various cards, envelopes, random sheets of paper and even an exercise book, and the novelty didn’t wear off. It was a great afternoon and I learned a lot, plus it was lovely to spend time with a fellow artist and crafter (that’s one thing I miss about not working from a shared studio any more – I don’t get a chance to talk to like-minded folk face to face). Xtina is a good teacher and a thoroughly lovely woman and I’d highly recommend her print Gocco workshops. Whether you have a specific interest in print or just fancy trying something new I reckon you’ll enjoy yourself.
I’m itching to play with my own Gocco now I’ve learned how but I’m having to exercise restraint while I wait for some supplies to arrive (a solvent cleaner for getting ink off the screens, as recommended by Xtina!). It’s frustrating to have to wait but on the plus side I suppose it gives me a while to think about what my next design will be.
