Thursday, December 13, 2007

I'm Gocco'ing! I'm Gocco'ing!

Dear Shayne,

Perhaps you'll remember that Bill gave me a Print Gocco last year for Christmas and I've been chicken to try it?

Yeah.

Well, I finally came up with a design and started Gocco'ing yesterday! Yay! Here is the first layer:
Gocco, step 1

Of course, I am a dork and had to start with both bleeding off the edge (kind of a trick) and using more than one color (this photo only shows the first printing -- more to come!) Why I couldn't pick something simple for my first time out, I'll never know.

Meanwhile, I love, love, LOVE it. You were right -- it's not hard! I'll admit I blew the first screen I did because of my stupid bleed, but only one F up so far, so that's pretty good.

For the few regular readers of this blog who are now spoiled as to the Christmas card they'll be getting, I'm sorry. I'm just So. Damned. Excited!

Whee! Gocco!

love,
kelly

7 comments:

The Bon said...

They'll be better in person anyway!

I'm still mad at stupid blogger with the stupid comments. It makes me really glad I stopped using it ages ago. Now it takes two clicks to get to me from this comment, and there's no real reason for that.

Shayne said...

Yea you! You are much braver than me. I have yet to do a full-bleed or two colors. Can't wait to see the finished product in the mail! I bet you'll have success on fabric too - something I failed so miserably at that I have been too wimpy to try it again.

Shayne said...

I got mine today....it's awesome!!!

kelly said...

Yay!! Glad you like it! I'll have to take a photo of the finished cards this weekend while it's light out.

Winter makes photo-taking hellish. :(

Anonymous said...

Hey, these look great! I'm about to print my first GOCCO project and of course I want to use bleeds and multiple masters. Any chance you could let me know how you created the bleed? (I'm trying to work on pre-cut paper if possible since I'm doing a lot) Thanks -- I truly appreciate any advice! zetaarae@hotmail.com

kelly said...

zetaarae -- I'll post a response here so that anyone after you will see it here, but I'll also email ya!

Disclaimer: I am no Gocco expert (this being my first and only try at it) but here is what I found...

I ended up modifying my design to only bleed off of the top and side (I originally also wanted to bleed off of the bottom) of my card. Keep reading to find out why.

1. I could not burn all the way to the edge of my screen. I looked this up and did some research, and that does not seem uncommon. So you have to envision a 1/4 inch border all the way around your screen that is basically "unprintable."

2. Given that, make sure the card you want to print is smaller than the screen itself. If your card is the same size as the screen, it will also have that unprintable border around the edge. (That's why I ended up basically printing off of the upper "corner" of my card and not the whole thing.)

As for the actual printing... it was kind of messy. The way I ended up handling it was to put another sheet behind the edge of my card and overprint onto that. You have to keep changing that sheet out, because you'll get a little ink buildup along the edge of your cards eventually.

Sooo... I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more specific questions!

Anonymous said...

Kelly, you are so sweet! I got your email & responded; thanks so much!! I'll let you know how they turn out... I'm doing a series of four two-sided cards for a self-promo, and so it might be a while :)