So…

I had planned to write tonight about my first experience with my new Gocco screen printing system. Well, I guess I can still write about it, but it will be seriously lacking in Gocco content due to the fact that I didn’t use it very much at all.

I spent an extra hour at work today designing 5 sweet little notecards that I planned to screenprint in pink and black. They were pretty good, if I do say so myself. I’d buy them. Anyways, I did it at work so I could take advantage of the carbon based laser printer since you can only make Gocco screen masters with a carbon original. I came home, went across the street and helped set up Em and Colin’s new sound system (they think I am a wiz at sound equipment since my Dad was a DJ, so don’t tell them that I pressed a random button on the amp when they were out of the room and it started working magically), then settled down in the dungeon studio for a night of print-making magic.

The instruction manual was less than useless. Well, that’s not true, I am sure it is VERY helpful, just not to me, since it is Japanese and I opted to learn “ou est Paul, Paul est dans la bibliotheque” instead of the Asian literary arts. I guess I should have gone with Japanese in highschool, thinking back. I mean, the french I know will only help me if I happen to met a guy named Paul, and then lose him in a library. I finally found fairly good English instructions at nehoc.com, the Australian print-making site. So I snapped in the thingy with bulbs, positioned my master, flashed the screen and pulled it out. The paper was stuck to the screen. I pulled them apart, which left some of the carbon ink on the screen. And as I was pulling the final corner of my original off the master screen I re-read the last line of the instructions: DO NOT remove original from the master screen. Dammit.

No problem, I know the unit came with two extra flash bulbs so I figured I’d replace them and flash another master. At least I could get one card style done tonight, right? Now where had I put those extra bulbs?

This turned about to be quite an important question indeed. So, if anyone knows the answer, please email it to me because I can not for the life of me find the little buggers in my studio. Double Dammit.

So ends my Gocco adventure until I find the damn bulbs or get more shipped to me. But keep an eye out in Sixth & Elm for screen printed notecards… someday…