Bees Knees

Update!

GOOOOOOOD MORNING!!!!

I've been away for a few days from the blog... my apologies! Several people have inquired what's going on with me, new, mentioning I've not updated the blog since (gasp!) Saturday! Well, let's recap.

First of all, Pig. Pig's breakfast today includes a lovely glass of orange mango Naked juice! It's really tasty!

1. It's been a tad snowy lately. Just today and yesterday, but it's been snow-showering, mostly in the early morning when no one is particularly pleased with it. It's wet snow, too, which is pretty much rare for where I live. It's wet snow, sure, but it doesn't stick around for long, and it's sun-shiny by the afternoon. Usually.

2. I watched a cool movie at the library with M and D, and one of D's old college friends. The movie was called, "Cairo Time." It was about this American woman who goes to Egypt to visit her husband who is working there.  Her husband has a stressful job that ties him up a lot and the woman ends up spending a good deal of time with a man named Taruk, who is like her Egyptian tour guide. He shows her Egypt the way it is meant to be seen. The movie is really interesting and beautiful in its own right.

3. M totally surprised me with an unusual gift of a giant box of... makeup! Let me first say, this is very much NOT the kind of gift he would give me. But apparently he ordered it from a co-worker who was selling these awesome make up products (sorry to bore you, men) and I guess was waiting for the big box of lovely colors to come in. When they arrived, he gave me this huge gold zip up case full of beautiful eye shadow colors, blush colors, lip glosses, lipsticks, and eye pencils. I love makeup, don't get me wrong, mostly because it's like face art. But truth be told, I don't wear a ton of it. My mom and sisters tend to go for the more expensive make up, but I can't afford the kind they rant and rave about, so I've resorted to the cheap brands that I can afford. Maybe the end result is that it's just not as much fun when you're not into the good stuff. However, this kit, with all of the eye shadow colors, blush and lipstick varieties... I will be experimenting for a long time! It's not something I normally spend any kind of money on, but I don't have to worry about that now! I tried out the eye shadow (3 colors) starting today, but was shy about it... I started with the shade that was basically a nude tone. I put a little brown on the corners. Here's to future (braver!) experimentation!

4. I gocco'd cloth! I got fantastic cloth fabrics for gocco in the mail from a lovely seller in Japan who usually has a lot of gocco products in her store. My first attempt was sort of a flop, but not so much that I threw it away. I'll use the first cloth printing attempt for myself (see below the botched try), save the screen, and reprint later when I have more time so as to avoid mistakes I made the first round of printing.

(Also you can see my nails here, though they look VERY cherry or strawberry red in this pic, and they are more... cranberry. Yes, cranberry.)

5. I painted my nails multiple times and removed the polish multiple times in a mere matter of a few days. My nails have been pewter grey, chocolate brown, bright cherry red, a hideous aqua blue, and now, after having to go to the store to fetch more polish remover, my nails are a plummy reddish hue, shiny and lacquered-looking. They are the yummiest shade so far in mixture, though I rather liked the pewter color for a time. I think I may leave them like this, though that's what I said about the other colors, too. :)

6. Projects, galore! I have been doing a little side freelance work, both for businesses and individuals, and I am feeling extremely productive in researching for future projects, too. Things that lay on the line are in full swing and I am stoked for their completion!

7. And last but not least, I am going home for Thanksgiving, and right before I leave, I'm going ICE SKATING with M and D! D is going to South America for about 5 or 6 months (I think!) and we're all going ice skating before the send off. Plus, I get to babysit his painting while he's oversees. His painting is by an awesome painter, Richard Salcido, and I'm stoked I get to take care of it while D is gone. I'll take care of it, too... it's one of my fav's!

So, what's new with YOU?

Etsy! Updated!

Tea print and Tea print cards are now in my etsy shop!

Also in the shop, are the new gocco cards! A Jammin' owl dude (or dudette!) with a boom box on his feathery shoulder!

Wanna see what else I've got in store?

Ugh-My-Gocco

After the excitement of printing successfully my first awesome round of prints, I have been totally stoked about the Gocco. Yes, it's true, I only posted about the Gocco printing process just this morning. But if you must know, I've had those pictures taken for at least a day. So again, after round one being so terribly successful, I immediately began planning for my next round of printing, hoping to make something even awesomer than before. (Yeah, I know "awesomer" isn't a word, but I'm thinking you get the idea of what I'm trying to say!)

I planned and worked all day, on getting the image squared away, on sizing and darkening the image just right, on xeroxing and planning ink colors, etc. I even got M on the venture and he was pretty excited to be involved, too, considering that he had seen what could come out of the machine on the first turn of it.

This evening I got down to pulling out the Gocco again, setting the whole thing up once more, organizing myself even better than the first time. I had a place for my cards, my drying racks, my inks. I had it all ready to go. I let M screw in the bulbs and push down the folding arm for the bulbs to flash and burn the screen. And when we removed the lamp and looked at the screen in anticipation, we found that only one bulb had gone off.

After trying a few more times, we realized that one of the bulbs was indeed faulty, and could not be used. The screen was only partially burnt, and the image was no longer aligned. Given that you get 10 bulbs in a kit and it takes 2 bulbs per go, having to throw away an unused (but bad) bulb gave me the shivers. So I decided that in efforts to not waste a screen, too, I'd just put in an extra bulb, replacing the bad one and re-burning the screen. M did the honors again after the new bulb was in place, and the bulbs flashed in glory, giving me back my hopes.

M felt as though he had saved the day, and I was thrilled to have saved the screen with the loss of only one bad bulb. However...

When we lifted the lamp and inspected the screen, it wasn't burnt very well, and from what we could tell, it looked like the middle of the image wasn't burnt at all.

Still, with my hope tucked away in my heart strings, I ink-blocked the darn thing anyway, squirted my Gocco inks on with a vengeance, and set up to print.

And after one print, then 2, then 3, we knew it was hopeless and had not burnt properly. 3 bulbs and one screen gone, I felt so terribly defeated, and still do as I type these words.

That being said, I had to stop myself from diving head first into a giant bowl fruit loops to cure the pain. Instead, I decided I needed to write about it. I said to M just minutes ago, "Part of trying new stuff is that it isn't always going to be perfect, right?" He said, "right!" And I continued, "I have to tell people that in my blog. This is part of the journey, screwing up a little bit." Or a lot. Whatever.

So keeping my composure and avoiding the kitchen, I put all the elements of my Gocco kit away neatly in its box. I tidied up the table and gave M a smooch and Mo, like most cats, picked up on my sadness and followed me into the bedroom to "fix" it with his magic feline abilities. And that is where I sit now, a cat by my arm, writing about this whole ordeal.

I feel better already. I'm still bummed out, sure. But I'm not giving up. Instead, I'm going to take a breather, finish this post, and draw in my sketchbook. "Back to the foundation" of where it all comes from, anyhow.

That's the greatest thing about a pencil and an eraser and smooth, white sketchbook paper-- it will not bring me technical difficulties. Not tonight.

O-M-Gocco! (Part 2)

Here you'll see the materials you need for your Gocco adventure.  Clockwise from top, you need the Printo Gocco, itself, drying racks, the Gocco lamp (and bulbs, in the yellow box), a Gocco screen, your image, foam ink block and scissors, something to print your image on, Gocco screen printing ink.

First I took my original image. I drew it small because I wasn't going to have a lot of space to print on, anyway. The Gocco machines only allow for a print area of about 3.5" x 5.5". It's tiny, but there are options for you to get a larger image later on. I cut down my image after it was drawn, separating the elements of the clouds and the fox.

I then Xeroxed my image and shrank it just a bit to ensure that the entire image, with all elements included, would fit into the allotted space given for Gocco printing. You Xerox the image so that you have an image that has ink printed with carbon elements. Most Gocco kits come with a pen that contains carbon so you can skip the Xeroxing step, but since my kit came used and did not include the pen, I had to Xerox my image.

This is the Xeroxed image placed on the stick pad that is inside of the Gocco machine. I have also loaded the Gocco screen onto the machine and placed the lamp and bulbs on top of the machine all together. (Sorry for not documenting those aspects very well!)

After you put your lamp with bulbs on the machine, have loaded the Gocco screen, and have your image on the sticky pad, you close the arm to the machine, and push down. The bulbs flash, and your screen is burnt! It's a little hard to believe, but as long as you see the flash, you've got a burnt screen.

After you burn your screen, you use the foam color block to separate areas on your image that you want to come out in different colors. The foam acts as a barrier for the ink so that it doesn't spread into the different-colored areas of your image.

Here you can see how I blocked my burn screen to ensure that those areas would stay only one color.

This is a really bad picture (sorry), but I was trying to show you how I inked the screen, then closed the plastic film flap to squish down over top of the ink I just put on the screen. See if you can figure out that that's what is actually in this picture! :)

After you ink your screen, you load it back into the Gocco machine (lamp removed), and place your paper that you want to print on the sticky pad (where you put your original image before.) You fold the arm to the machine down over top of your paper, lift the arm, and MIRACULOUSLY, you see your image printed in the colors you inked on your screen! 

Here is what my image looked like after I lifted the arm of the machine. You can see the smooshed globs of ink in the screen on the arm of the Gocco machine. I was so scared because I was certain the whole thing wouldn't work and I would just have globs of ink printed onto my paper. But It totally worked! And it really amazed me.

With a well-inked screen, you can print up to 50 times using the same inked screen you originally burnt. I used the drying racks after this image was taken. Additionally, once you are finished printing your image, you can clean your screen and save it to be used again at another time. You cannot, however, burn a new image onto the same screen you used. Once you burn a screen, it's burnt for good.

If you're interested in purchasing this Gocco card print, visit my etsy store!

O-M-Gocco! (Part 1)

I recently discovered a very exciting creative machine that a lot of artists are using in the independent artistry world. I know it's been around for a while-- so long, in fact, that it's already no longer in production. But the machines are out there in the modern world being used to turn every kitchen table into a miniature Andy Warhol studio, enabling artists to "mass produce" their own imagery via screen print. And it's so easy, you wouldn't even believe you've never heard of this before.

The machine I speak of is the Print Gocco machine. There are many models of the same machine, and those strange model numbers can get a little overwhelming to someone who is new to Gocco (like myself) who wants to get one, but doesn't know what kind to get, and wants to make sure that it's the proper kind for a beginner and for what you want to use it for.

I researched online as many places as I could, and found that most people seemed to be using what is called the "B-6" model, though truth be told, that letter and number combination means nothing to me. I saw artworks people were printing using that model, I watched tutorials with that model, I read about the pros and cons, learned about the struggles and joys, and decided that if I'm jumping head-first into this machine, I might as well just get the B-6. If it's wrong, oh well. I tried, right?

Tracking it down was the trickiest part, as I had to find an independent seller, since they're no longer in production to be sold through art suppliers. I eventually found one through ETSY. It had be very slightly used and was still in awesome condition. The listing showed that it came with lots of ink, bulbs, and screens. So even though it still hurt to pay (even less) for the used machine, I at least knew I was getting a semi-discount.

Yesterday was my first run with my Gocco machine and it was SO much fun. Read the next post to see my first encounter with the Gocco, documented step-by-step for you to see how it works and what kind of awesomeness it produces.