:: Sharpie ink does not burn screens! I read it somewhere and was so excited but two screens and four bulbs later, turns out it was all wrong....boo!
:: I found it interesting that a solid background made using carbon pencils created a moire pattern in the burned screen. Good news: the moire pattern doesn't print and is only visible if you examine the screen at an angle. I'm not sure why or how this happened. Will have to do some more research. I did find that the 'photo screen' print gocco accessory is a white dot-screen transparency that you place over your photos before making a photocopy of it.
Here are some essential materials that don't come with most standard print gocco sets that you must buy:
:: Ink blocking material: Totally essential! Thats why its the first on my list! I read a great tip in the wurst gallery interviews about how blocking off areas also saves you ink. duh! so true! block block block!
:: Ink Cleaner: This is what you need to keep your hands and studio and print gocco and clothes and screens clean. First you scrape off the ink, then you wipe as much of it off as you possibly can with a paper towel, then finally squirt on some cleaning gel to make it extra clean. It helps if you do this with your screen on scrap paper. Every few wipes/minutes, change the paper so you can tell by the imprint how much more cleaning the screen needs. A tube of this goes a long way.
:: Correction fluid: Smells like nail poilish. It costs about as much as pharmacy/grocery store nail polish, and it might even be nail polish. You'll need this if you're like me and realise only after you've already burned a screen and printed it that you want to add another layer. Easy fix? Just cover the unwanted openings with the correction fluid!
Finally, I noticed that Think Ink has "The New Gocco Guide" on sale for 10.95. Google is my best friend, but I have found this guide to be easy to follow and often read through it for advice and tips. One of the most valuable things I've found in it so far has been the info on color mixing. Apparently gocco colors mix differently than traditional paints, and they recommend using small quantities of fluorescent colors when mixing most colors. I never would have guessed that.
Hey, its Monday! I'm off to make some art with my fellow collaborators.
4 comments:
wow! these goccos sound superb!!! i looked on ebay and they are pricey, eh?! are they small?! i'd love to get into this since there are some things that would work better if i printed vs. iron ons or even just cut paper... hmmmm, is it an expensive technique overall?!
Please, please, please show us what you made with your art pals. It's always a feast for the eyes!
art monday's been posted! hooray for art monday!
ellia, keep up the looking on ebay..they might be the only place you can buy them from now that they've been discontinued (boo!).
They come in two sizes, smaller one is postcard size, larger one is double.
It costs about $5 to shoot a screen (you need 2 bulbs and 1 screen) plus ink. There is a page on the NEHOC gocco site that has a per-sheet estimate of how much it costs. Each screen can make about 1,000 prints. phew!
oh, and you can print on pretty much anything with it. even *ribbon*!
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