gocco loco!

where to begin? pronounciation? go-ko it rhymes with loco. i always thought it was gawko and along with thinking that i had no idea this machine would make me so happy. i loved my experience at my gocco workshop at blim this past weekend, getting to know this incredible little hand press and all it's goodness.



i had no idea this carbon loving machine used flash bulbs, did you? cute little old fashioned yellow light bulbs - (that you can save afterwards and make a mobile or something, as sonja suggested). so first off you find a design. (4"x6"), and you can cut and paste, yes, hula, "COLLAGE" bits and pieces together to make your original. the only catch is it all has to be a carbon-based photocopy (which is just a regular photocopy), or something laser printed, and even some bubblejets will work. or even a sharpie - as it's carbon-based. so you can just write stuff free-hand or draw as an illustrator would say. so once you have your design set you open up the machine, place your original inside, place a blue filter that does something to the photocopy, and your master film plate slid in. put your flash bulbs in, click in place, press down and "poof" a big flash of light (like a camera) and you have your master film.

then you choose your paint colors, and literally gob yes GOB the paint all over the black carbon areas. almost like decorating a cake. oh ya - there's some fancy "ink blocking" you can do - which is basically placing some foamy material in between pieces in your design that are different colors so they don't bleed into each other. then once that's done, you cover it with the cello attached to the film and slide it into the machine. and then press down the top part (with film in) onto the card you are wanting to print onto.



and then after that its easy - just press away. you can press up to 75 times before you need to add more ink. and the film is good for 1000 copies. you can even press onto napkins, ribbons, bags, shirts (there's fabric paint as well). just a printing dream. make it up and print it. mousepads, magnets.

so with all of that in mind, the most important thing is your design. now i have seen some pretty fancy designs and layers - you can do layers. like print one, let dry and then lay down another. so it can get pretty technical with the registration part of it; but there are some beautiful gocco works out there. i think what i've learned from my design (which i'm not loving by the way), is that detail is what works best. i used quite a block design, blocky letters, and subject.




with the "bird image" (below - illustration cut out from a bird book), done by a fellow classmate, her detail really comes out so well and so i think that detail alone or with a blocky letter would work. but what i've done the block and block is not as effective.



so all in all, i got (20 holiday cards) made from the class and YES, purchased a gocco machine! i'm so excited to start working with it. and already ideas are swirling about. i would definitely reccommend a workshop though, and there is even another one coming up for the fabric version. apparantly you pull out the press block and attach a handle stamp kit and press onto shirts, bags, etc.




there's some amazing gocco-ing going on out there (like above - a sample the instructor had, by united congress, vancouver) and the possibilities are endless i think. there's also a flickr pool for gocco, (unfortunately, flickr is down tonight here on the west coast so i'm unable to link you there directly), but search for gocco pool. and go gocco loco!

UPDATE: the gocco pool from flickr is here. is especially like this, this and this.