Thursday 11 December 2008

Christmas Card Exchange

This is the second year that we've taken part in the Dogs with Blogs Christmas card exchange whereby participants send Christmas cards to pals all around the world. Most people use straightforward photos of their dogs on the cards but we wanted to do something a little different.

I thought I might experiment with my gocco printer and print a photo of our dog Jackson with a difference. I decided to use this photo as I like the way he's looking directly at the camera.



Firstly I edited out the background and then superimposed a cartoony big nose and added the antlers. When trying to print a photo using a gocco it's best to add dots to the image so that it comes out like a newspaper photo. I could have done it in Photoshop, but I like the lo-fi photo screens that the gocco manufacturer Riso produce for this so I used one of them instead. It's placed directly on the photocopier screen and the image is put on top and copied. All images for gocco have to be photocopied or drawn using a special pen to get the right amount of carbon to work properly. It's all a bit technical for me, I'm afraid.

I then added the message using Lionel Text Diesel in red and silver ink.



I like the way it looks sort of faded, although the photo doesn't really do it justice and the writing is actually straight on the original cards, not slightly skew-whiff as seen here!

9 comments:

Poopsie aka Blue said...

I loved my card of my fav. WFT - the image here, just doesn't do it justice.

Blue
x

Simba said...

nice! Yes, I'll be gocco'ing a lot soon. Got some nice card ideas coming!

Melissa (and Simba)

Christy said...

What a great technique and an awesome card. :) So cute!

doggie home ec. part 2 said...

Love that card! Cute doggie too! :)

Eric said...

Loved the card, most pawfect picture! Wags, Eric x

Kathy Russo said...

It's adorable I love it. Happy Holidays

dearprudence said...

Every time you comment on my blog, I come to yours only to see a cute doggie that makes me want one SO BAD.

I will have to wait until I have a house with a yard and stop overdrafting my account once every four months :(

Thanks for the comment and advice. I'll definitely be doing a blog giveaway over the break so keep in touch if you want to participate!

Pippa said...

Your card is wonderful, very classy. Thanks very much for sending us one.

Kate and Pippa

Anonymous said...

Great card!
Lovely image!

I'm very interested in printing techniques, this looks to be an interesting company, and they can make screens up for you at quite reasonable rates: http://www.thermofaxscreens.co.uk/

I found the info on this blog, you need to go back a bit, but it has some good photo's of the process
http://louisebatten.blogspot.com/