Paper

To celebrate our wedding anniversary a few weeks ago we went out and spent our pennies on some sheets of paper (paper being the traditional gift to give a couple on their first anniversary - see here) from our local art shop, Norwich Art Supplies.

As well as a thick wodge of Zerkall, we also picked up some other printmaking papers - BFK Rives, Hahnemuhle, Somerset (in white and in black) and some Fabriano sheets.

I treated myself to two lovely sheets of paper which I have been coveting for ages, but needed an excuse to splash out -

First, a beautiful sheet of hand marbled paper by Victoria Hall in the most lovely soft shades of green and yellow (difficult to capture in a photograph). It will have to be saved for a special project (perhaps after the bookbinding course we're going on in a few weeks...).

We also got the most fabulous sheet of walnut paper. It looks a bit like the surface of the moon, and is really thick and stiff. Absolutely no idea what to use it for as yet, but had to be added to the collection. Any ideas?

I love the colour of these tulips - a pale creamy yellow, and almost green in places. Today has been gloriously sunny, and full of the joys of spring, so I couldn't resist them at our local greengrocers.

Lee's Century Baking Powder

Here is that new print...

Here are the first two layers - first, a layer of beige brown bricks...
Followed by a thin, blotchy layer of a darker red-brown.
Then Jon cut out the lettering and printed a thin layer of white over the top for the final layer -

Lee's Century Baking Powder - it never fails! If only you could still buy a pound of baking powder for sixpence.You can see a photo of the real-life sign here.

There are loads of great examples of faded adverts painted on the sides of buildings on the Faded London blog and in the Ghost Signs group on Flickr.

Jon's print is now up in our Etsy and Folksy shops.

A new print

Here's a peek at Jon's newest woodcut (he's firmly back in his printmaking groove now that the thesis is handed in). We'll upload some proper photos tomorrow - its a bit dark to photograph the the finished prints properly.

We've had a sprinkling of snow today, but yesterday was gloriously sunny so we went for a walk along the River Bure, near Oxnead and Buxton.

We've been sorting through the rest of our photos from our holiday - here are a couple from the top of Walsgrove Hill. The colours look rather muddier than they did in real life, but it was a spectacular view with plenty going on. We were up there for ages watching a shoot and a football match at Abberley School, as well as all the sheep (including a few lambs) roaming around the fields.

We had to move in the end because we were getting so cold, but the view definitely has some potential for a print in the future - perhaps an engraving?

Rollers!

Today I got home from work with a dreadful headache and decided to cheer myself up with a nice spot of printing - our back room was full of late afternoon sunshine and an hour or so with a cup of tea in the company of the Adana seemed like a bright idea...

We've had a few weeks almost completely away from printing of any kind, so today was the first time I'd tried out the new rollers that Jon bought me for Christmas, as well as the sweet perpetual calender I got from ebay a couple of weeks ago (2010 calenders here we come!)

If you look carefully you might spot my mistake - if only I'd noticed at this point!

Here is the Adana with some purple ink splodged all over the ink disc -

And with the ink covering the disc -

The rollers are excellent, and make everything much easier than hand inking - although I did manage to get purple ink all over myself because I kept brushing the ink disc. The rollers also make a very satisfying pattern - hard to get in a photo though.

Here is the finished month - completely and totally backwards - Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. Argh! Oh well, that'll teach me to try and do it when I'm distracted about other things instead. Fortunately printing is so therapeutic that my headache was cured enough not to mind (much).
Ah well, I shall go and find solace in a home-made egg custard tart and ponder what kind of engravings I can make Jon do to go with my calender months...

Yet more lovely daffodils, in a bargainous vase from the Habitat sale.

Lock Cottage

We have just got home from a lovely week spent at Lock Cottage, an early 19th century lock keeper's cottage owned by the Landmark Trust on the Birmingham and Worcester canal. We did lots of walking, eating, drinking, reading and sketching - but not a great deal else! Lots of lovely walks up and down the towpath and across the fields, then back to the cottage for tea and a bun in front of a roaring log fire.

We only saw one boat go through the locks outside the cottage, but we did see a fox and lots of ducks, moorhens, fieldfares and redwings.

Who would have thought a holiday near Bromsgrove would be so lovely?

The joy of fusing

Today I had a long list of errands and work I wanted to get done before we have a few days away next week....
Unfortunately I got sucked into rummaging around in the cupboard under the stairs to find some plastic bags after reading this tutorial on Etsy. Once you start fusing, it can become difficult to stop. By lunchtime I had a large pile of pieces of fused plastic bag all ready to be made into exciting things.

So, this afternoon I whipped up a bag with some fused Waitrose and Co-op bags and some black canvas handles. Not perfect by any means, but not bad for a first attempt!

Now it's nearly half past four and I still haven't done anything on my 'to do' list today, but I do have a new and useful bag!

Perhaps even more exciting that fusing plastic bags together are these - Penguin stamps!

A frosty walk

Today we headed out into the Norfolk countryside for a lovely walk through a very pretty hoar frost. Everything was covered in delicate spines of frost, and the ice in the puddles was over an inch thick (which doesn't take the weight of two people, incidentally).

We parked in Long Stratton and walked along some of the Tas Valley path up to Hapton and then back down to the car through Tharston (which we've visited before when we did the Veteran Tree Survey back in the summer of 2007).

We kept warm with a flask of beef and tomato soup and some cheese straws, and we're now tucked up at home with a mug of hot chocolate with whiskey in it. Just the thing to thaw out.