Two more plates in progress

I have recently completed some initial proof prints from two new plates. The first is of the interior of Shufflebotham's Stores (now Cafephilia). The photograph and story featured in 'Exchange Stories' - a recent project that took place at the Moseley Exchange. Roy from the Moseley Society recalled his memories of the grocers store.

I am pleased with the finished plate and particularly like the sepia ink. I will need to add some spot colour, but as yet haven't decided on what that should be. I may wait until I have completed more images and decide what works with the other colours I have chosen as highlight.

The second new plate is based on the story from Moseley Park and Pool about the Cross brother and sister who fell through the ice whilst skating in January 1895. This plate needed a good deal of work as there were so many stages to etching the aquatint. I also scratched into the plate beforehand to recreate the ice. Unfortunately I wasn't aware the pressure was too heavy on the press and the more I printed the plate. the worse the image became as the aquatint became compressed.

 As a consequence, much of the detail has been irretrievably lost, and I have no choice but to start again! I was happy with the background and the ice, so I will try and recreate this. There were other errors that I can correct, such as the foot with no aquatint.

I finally got round to printing the lino cut of my Victorian Ice Skates that I did for the Smart Gallery exhibition in Skipton. I haven't yet decided how I will use this in my exhibition, but it would be nice to display the skates themselves alongside the etching.

Pigeon Holes

I have found some industrial pigeon holes, salvaged from a local factory, that I can use in the Dovecote. They are ideal as a place for visitors to post their stories and other contributions to the archive. The concept of a pigeon hole clearly links with the Dovecote itself.

Although I was originally looking for wooden pigeon holes, I feel happy that the metal ones effectively reflect the industrial growth that Moseley was built on.

Visit to Bournville Exhibition Space

On Friday those of us involved in organising the 'Significant Features' exhibition went to see the exhibition space at Bournville. We were able to present our ideas for the exhibition to the rest of the team and to discuss plans for the next few weeks. The layout of the show will be themed around aspects of the survey 'Social Mix' .We measured up the space and Ross has produced a floor plan for us to finalise the lay out.

More on Wood Engravings

After completing a trial wood engraved block, I have since engraved the four blocks I ordered from Chris Daunt. Two have motifs from Moseley street signs and two are from Moseley Park flora.

These will be used at the first exhibition planned at the Cowhouse at the end of June, to co-incide with the Open Gardens weekend. I would like visitors to try their hand at printing from these blocks, perhaps I could produce a simple map that could be used as a background to create 'My walk round Moseley'. I am assuming most interest for this will come from children. I have ordered more blocks from Chris and have taken some more photos of imagery I can use. If I could end up with at least a dozen blocks, I think that will give me enough to make a start during the first event.

Text and images for quotes

I have completed another lino cut of the text for 'The Blue Balloon' quote. For the time being I have used images directly taken from the aquatints for the small illustration blocks within the text. I feel this helps explain the quotes, especially who is speaking.