Gocco Locco!

Until I joined etsy I didn't know what a gocco was, I thought maybe it was a kind of lizard... but was swiftly corrected! Then I met Gillian of Fabric Nation at a craft retreat in York and she showed me her Gocco and I fell in love!My Gocco

So since I get this question a lot I thought maybe it's time I told you what a gocco is and what it does. Wiki says :"Gocco (プリントゴッコ, Purinto Gokko^?, "Print Gocco") is a self-contained compact color printing system invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Gocco became immensely popular in Japan and it is estimated that one-third of Japanese households own a Print Gocco system. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen."Screen and drawing

So basically its a teeny wee screen printing system and it's brilliant, Riso (the company that makes gocco's) no longer makes the machines but the materials are still in production, for now! I keep an eye out for bargain inks and screens and have a stock pile!Inked Screen

The system is so simple to use, you draw your image with the special carbon pens or you can use some photo copiers to and then you burn your image onto a screen with the special flash bulbs. The you ink the screen, pop it back in the machine and squish onto paper... depending on your image you can get probably up to a hundred prints from one inking... I usually get about 30 as my drawings are pretty dense with lines and use a lot of ink.A freshly printed wren

I also have a gocco stamp, which is basically a big sticky pad which you can use with the screens like a stamp! This means that I can print on practically any surface and am desperate to try it on my walls! I guess the landlord might object tho so I'll save that for when we can afford our own place!My Stamp Kit

All in all it's a clever little piece of kit and lends it's self really well to my style of drawing, it feels a lot more special than just a laser printed drawing and give a beautiful quality of line. My gocco is my best investment yet... I love it so much and if my house was on fire it's probably the one thing I would take with me!