Experimental gocco print, day 4

Another day, another bowl of strawberries. And another big pile of chard. Next year, I'll probably plant 1/4 of the chard that I planted this year. As it is, the freezer is full of packages of frozen chard already. And prepping the chard took all morning. Spent a couple of hours catching up on project related emails before I was able to get started printing.

I was surprised to find what I printed yesterday in the light blue is still not dry to the touch today. I went ahead and printed the next layer, also in the same light blue. I printed it a couple of times to get the blue to show (when layered over other colors, the colors don't print true without at least a couple of layers). Then I decided I wanted the dots to be lighter.

So here I've just scraped off the light blue and re-inked in white. (This screen has been used and cleaned 8 times for this print as of today. It was used and cleaned at least that many times to print Fatherland. It's still holding up well, but looks pretty beat up alright.)



And the dots over printed with the white. So the dots have been printed 3 times -- twice in the light blue and then once in white.



I've been storing my inks in empty altoid tins, and they've worked really well. But I'm starting to run out of them. Desperation is the mother invention, or something like that, and I now wonder why I didn't think of this before -- saran wrap and THEN altoid tins. You can see the colors of the inks saved, and you cram them in there. (Just the saran wrap does not keep the ink nearly as well; the ink will start to dry out.)



So here's the mock-up at this point. I'm still proceeding with my original plan at this point. I'm letting it dry over night before I continue.



This way of printing is much more like painting and less like printing. Unlike etching where you pull one print and decide what to do next; and once you like what you've got, then you edition. With this method, I'm editioning as I go (I have to, as the plate is 'gone' after each layer), and as I figure out what to do next. It's sort of like reduction woodcut, where the plate is destroyed after you print each layer.

The movie tonight was Dessert at Pix! Actually, there was no movie, and Pix was a dessert place that I've been meaning to try but keep forgetting. Thanks to the Scarlet Letters, I was reminded of it today. And since there were only 2 movies in the Random Movie Selection hopper tonight (No End in Sight and Becoming Jane), I decided to throw Pix in just for the extra sport, and it won!

I won't be able to work on the print tomorrow, I'll be dealing with the post office insurance, dropping off artwork for exhibit, volunteering at the library, and going to a talk in the evening. Just as well, I bet the light blue will need the extra day to dry.