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November 14, 2005

pan: holiday gocco printing

by gl. at 4:04 pm

eeeeee! yesterday i finally got to take a gocco class w/ shu-ju wang, something i've been wanting to do since the portland open studio tour. she even recognized me, due also in part to my subscribing to her gocco print test lab, pudding. (mph, why do all the best things have "pudding" in them? maybe sven & i should rename ourselves "scarlet pudding studios.")

print arts northwest hosted the workshop and fortunately (for us) there were few enough students so that we each got our own gocco press. i took a gocco workshop at the iprc several months ago, and as much as I (heart) the iprc, shu-ju's class had a lot more hands-on time and i walked away with a more complete picture of the whole process (but then, it cost 4 times more, too).

i totally missed that this was supposed to be for "holiday cards." i wanted to use the einstein piece to create cards, but its subtle tonal variations make lousy photocopies & therefore lousy gocco screens (i could play w/ the contrast in photoshop or iphoto, though, i think). so instead i used my blind contour self-portrait, leaving enough room beneath for a little calligraphy. when i used just black ink, it didn't look much different than a photocopy, but when i used three colors it was much better. (using different inks on the same screen is one of gocco's many advantages compared to traditional screenprinting.)

[original][gocco screen][gocco print]

so now i have 21 small cards in white & mustard (the gold ink disappears at the right angles on the mustard card, making most of my face disappear) and 12 small portrait-sized pieces i don't know what to do with yet. (though i suspect my parents will get one for xmas. good thing they don't read this, right? ;)

gocco competes with letterpress for my attention (and my limited $ for supplies): i adore handling type and the feel of letterpress pieces, but gocco is much quicker, easier, more versatile, and more importantly, a lot less toxic to use & clean up. i suspect gocco will win, at least in the short term.

posted by gl. | November 14, 2005 4:04 PM | categories: classes & workshops, printing