OUR STREET...The 2014 Xmas Card

Much of the urban north-east of England was developed alongside the Industrial Revolution. Railways and coal mines were the major employers of the average bloke. Our street is a "railway street". Houses for the engine drivers down one side and the stokers down the other. The manager and deputy had larger three storey houses at this end of the terraces. Colliery towns were similar.
One of the pitman painters from Spennymoor was called Norman Cornish. He died this year. This is Bishop's Close, Spennymoor...a railway and coal town...painted by Norman.

At the end of the road are the railway wagons carrying the coal from the colliery. It looks very similar to our street. The railways tended to have a generic architectural style.

The railways and collieries are long gone from the end of our street and the wasteland has recently been developed into a shopping centre. But I felt that I could recreate a winter scene.

The photo was flipped and traced and...

dry point etched onto an acetate sheet which was inked and printed down at the Bishop Auckland Townhall using the Tom McGuinness (another pitman painter) press.
I left out the cars and there were no people about which simplified things.
I watercoloured the first print.

It worked quite well so I printed another and developed a snow scene on it.

This has become our xmas card for this year. It went off to the printers up the road. They "enhanced" the colour a bit and brightened it up....

People up and down the street love it and so do I but of course our own house is not in it. It is behind the hedge on the front left.
So I wish you all a merry xmas. The snow is supposedly on its way and the temperatures are dropping so the street may soon look just like this.
Cheers Gillian

DRYPOINT ETCHING ON PERSPEX

This is my latest "hobby". I love it. I saw it advertised in our local free paper, "The Bishop Press" and rang up to book in straight away. The sessions are run at the Town hall once a month. Downstairs is a gallery and art studio/work space. It houses the printing press donated by Tom McGuinness, one of the "Pitman Painters".
He donated much to the local community. His press is for general use, some signed prints are for sale at a reasonable price at the library and I have even admired some magnificent paintings on the wall at the local GP's surgery. The receptionist simply said..."Oh Yes, Tom was a great friend of the Doctor".

This intaglio etching is a style of scratching on plexiglass with a steel pointed scriber...

The sheets I have used so far are 11x15cm. Not too big and ,therefore, easy to scratch away at with the scriber. It is considered artistic to scratch in different directions and with different strengths so that the scrapes have a rough or smooth edge and a variety of depth to hold the ink....

First effort shows from top to bottom...
*not enough ink wiped on and off the surface
*too much ink left on the plate
*maybe JUST RIGHT
It's a bit like the three bears and their porridge.

I inked this plate (on the left) with mixed inks. The two prints on the right are made with cotton buds applying the ink and lots of old phone book pages and cheap paper towel removing and blending it.

Here's another one done the same way in a few different colours.
I side placed the above prints on the sheet of paper so that I could fold them as cards, then I centre placed this one below.

I've started on another one using one of my own photos of Low Barns which is a wild life sanctuary near here. Here are the three stages I've done so far.

On the left is the photo, centre is the textural-tracing, right is the scratching/etching...as yet not complete. I'll see how it prints next month. It's only on once a month.

The other innovation chez nous is ...........A pressure cooker.

It came yesterday and I have already advanced from boiling potatoes to steaming gammon and making grand rice pudding. It is not to be a nine day wonder. Apart from it's own cooking benefits it will also reduce the cost of gas used in this house. I've never had one before so I'm sure you will hear more about it as I go.
Cheers
Gillian