Christmas Card 2023

This year, for the first time since 1994, I did use one my photographs. Instead, it is a (photograph of) a piece of my artwork. The artwork is stained glass, 30 cm x 30 in size. Made in the traditional way with cut panes of coloured glass joined by lead beading, rather than the quicker copper foil method or faked with glass paints & stick-on artificial beading. It is my first ever stained glass and was made in a weekend workshop/class at Stoke Bridge Workshops in Ipswich, UK. I highly recommend their classes if you live within a practical distance & are interested in learning such crafts. The instructors, Ian & Danielle, were very skilled, friendly & good teachers, with a family atmosphere & small class sizes. The amount of knowledge they imparted as we made the artworks was amazing. Despite the beginner limitations of a limit of 16 panes at maximum & only orthogonal straight lines (albeit they taught cutting glass in curves as a bonus too), us varied students ended up designing & creating very different artworks - from geometric, to abstract, to representational - all of which we individually liked.

Christmas Card 2023 Bonus Photograph

There were two reasons for a suprise bonus photograph (which I printed half-size & glued inside the card). Obviously one was in compensation for not having a pure photo as the main image. The other was that for 4 years, this photograph had got extremely "Marmite" responses from my panel: different friends either extremely liked it or extremely hated it. So having it as a bonus picture cleared that dilemma.

The crazy staring fun/scary pink elephant model was a car on a children's Merry-go-round at the permanent funfair on Clacton Pier, UK. I photographed it would of season when the funfair was closed.

Camera = Panasonic TZ35.

The border differs from the one I have used for years, which had rounded corners & so did not suit. I made this custom with the corners based on the design of the stained glass itself.

Downloads

• Stained glass photograph in screen resolution (as above).
• Stained glass photograph in original full resolution for printing.
• Bonus photograph in screen resolution (as above).
• Bonus photograph in original full resolution for printing.
• Border in original LibreOffice Draw format.
• Border converted to PDF format.

Card assembly instructions to duplicate the original:

1. Get the full resolution photograph printed at 6"x4.5" on photographic paper.
2. Print the border using a laser printer (or print once and duplicate by photocopier) on A4 160 g/m² white cardboard.
3. Fold the printed cardboard into an A5 greetings card with one straight crease.
4. Glue (or double sided selotape or similar) the photograph to the card in the correct orientation. Take care not to make the photograph too soggy.

Printing the border & photograph together on a colour printer does not give as good results (neither home laser nor inkjet printers have yet reached photographic printing quality). It also costs more (because of the ridiculous current price of printer ink) and gives a more mass-produced look.

More Christmas Cards

For the rest of my Christmas cards, go up to my Christmas card gallery page.

By Andrew Hardwick.
Distributable under GPL or CC-by-sa freeware licences.
Written 2024/7/14-19.
Available on-line at http://duramecho.com.