Website, Ely and Ebay

I am working on a major addition of prints to my website. This will still take at least another week but I wanted to signal some of the areas that are nearly finished. These include the "Birds and Beasts" and the "Brothers" series. Bot still have some prints to add but I am nearly there. Personally, these two galleries hold my favourite images, especially those of my children.

Many of you will know that Ely cathedral features in many of my images, often as a silhouette on the horizon as here:
So what is the attraction? The answer is that I have lived within site of the cathedral for about 45 years and it is a powerful and iconic building. It is also my favourite medieval building in Britain. I pass it every morning on the way to the station as I do my "taxi" runs. Today I stopped and took a photograph to share with you:


Today I worked on a "change of address" card for friends. This evening, I added some prints to my Ebay shop. The idea is to raise money to pay for the conservation of the Rembrandt. If you are interested, you can find them here. (Note added 26th Jan - everything sold out overnight but I have now added more prints to the Ebay shop - mainly artist's proofs).

Storms, A Bookplate and More on the Rembrandt

I have just about tidied up after storms earlier in the week. I was up at dawn on Wednesday, tying down the roof over the hens as it threatened to fly away. Later, I was on a shed roof nailing down the roofing felt that had torn and was rapidly unravelling. Luckily, there was no great structural damage. In the afternoon, I drove into Cambridge to collect A and J from work as trains and buses had been cancelled. We passed one bus that had been blown of the road and into a ditch.

I carried out more updates on my website during the week, including a "story of a bookplate". I was particularly pleased with this one and so I will show it again here:

I drove back into Cambridge on Friday to collect prints from a gallery and to take my Rembrandt to the Fitzwilliam Museum to compare it with theirs. Everything seems to be absolutely right about it and the next stage will be to have it floated off the album page to have the paper examined more closely. My fingers are still crossed that it is an early impression.

Well that was this week. Next task; more work on the website.

Engraving.... Eventually

I was working on enforced flexitime today thanks to a migraine. I walked out early with Bella the dog, posting a letter, buying a newspaper from the village shop and heading out down the drove. The visual interference started about as far as I was going to be from home. Bother and Blow! Migraines are a fairly regular part of my life and I cope well as long as I medicate early. Today, I wasn't carrying and, by the time I was back home, I couldn't see much at all with the wonderful - almost beautiful - swirling patterns. I closed the curtains and lay on the couch, waiting for the headache to hit.

Actually, it wasn't too bad and I was able to do some admin tasks this morning and I could start to engrave at around 3pm. I took a break for dinner and was back in the studio until 9pm when I just had to give up; a few hours after the headache I tend to feel like I went a few rounds against Tyson.

Still, the job is finished except for the proofing.

Here is my little corner of the world:

And again, a little closer:

The block is raised on two leather sandbags placed on a wooden platform with two handy draws. My most used tools are laid out ready and the magnifying glass is poised for those tricky details. The daylight bulb lets me work at any hour of night or day under exactly the same conditions. The eagled-eyed will make out my fave CD of the moment, "Ys" by Joanna Newsom, a Christmas present from A. The job is a bookplate. It will probably be posted soon in the bookplate gallery on my website.