The Making of 2008′s Holiday Card

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, here is a little more about how this year’s cards were produced. In addition to taking me two years to finish, I also ran into a couple of snags. Below each picture are details explaining each stop along the way.

• 1) As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was really inspired by Rankin Bass’s Rudolf special: specifically, the opening titles where the swirling snow blows across the screen. It has such a nice texture to it, but unfortunately, I was unable to find any good screen shots for reference. I ended up watching the DVD in frame-by-frame while frantically sketching notes for the linocut background.
• 2) The finished linoleum cut (inked to show relief) for the background of the card. This was originally going to be the second color printed.
• 3) I then prepared my master for the gocco screen. This time, I printed it using a laser printer instead of a photocopier. When I ironed it before flashing, a fair amount of carbon lifted up as you see here: was feeling good about this.
• 4) I then flashed the master which contained the first layer, the top text layer, and the copyright info for the back of the cards: 3 screens in one! Unfortunately, using the blue screen and all of the ironing wasn’t quite enough because I still ended up with carbon burned onto the screen. To remove it, I gently rubbed a little bit of carcoal lighter fluid on the back of the screen as suggested by the Gocco Flickr group…
• 5) …it worked! A test print of the whole screen showed it burned successfully!
• 6) Rather than buying Gocco’s mixing cones, I instead mixed my ink in little snack-sized Ziploc bags: this had the added advantage of being reseal-able when I wasn’t using them. A little snip in the corner, and the ink came out as if in a pastry bag.
• 7) This was my first time using the ink blocking material, and it worked like a dream.

• 8 ) The first layer printed like a dream in silvery-gold (get it? Silver and Gold…) on the creamy, slightly textured stock I had picked out from Paper Source. Alas! When I tried to print the linocut layer in white on top of it, it didn’t show up at all. Despite getting the more opaque metallic white, it was still too transparent. So I rethought my color palette and paper choice, scrapped the first layer, and ended up printing just the linocut on a nice metally silver cardstock from XPEDX.
• 9) The text layer on the front came next, and unfortunately not many cards turned out well. I had a lot of trouble with “peaking” which I suspect came from having too much ink on the screen. I readjusted the ink amount for the copyright info on the back, and that layer turned out perfect.
• 10) Lining the cards up for drying on the counter since I didn’t have a little rack to stick them in. All in all, I printed around 30 or so cards and each layer only took me about an hour and a half each night—including clean up.
• 11) A look at my registration “system”: I positioned a test card under the screen and then used painter’s masking tape to mark off each side. This worked pretty slick, but my pad needs to be upgraded as it doesn’t have it’s stickiness any more, so the cards had trouble staying put. Luckily it didn’t prove to be much of an issue, but I’m hunting around for a replacement part…

So there you go! A successful printing experience, and now I can’t wait to start on the other projects I have up my sleeves!

Tags | Christmas, gocco, Greeting Card