Category: Stockport

December photo walk

While visiting the art gallery last weekend and doing some Christmas shopping, I did a mini photo walk around town to capture buildings I will be making prints of using my photographs as a reference. I headed down to the old Debenhams store which is now closed and took some images.

Debenhams store
Debenhams store

From there, I walked back up the A6 and saw that progress has been made on the new 1 billion pound bus interchange next to the Hatworks museum and you can see the apartment block being constructed.

Bus Interchange development

As I made my way back up the A6, I made a slight detour and had a look at the Stockport Village area behind the Plaza theatre is in the progress of being demolished. I took a few pictures from behind a metal fence.

Stockport Village (now being demolished)

Stockport Village was once a thriving little shopping precinct hidden away and has been abandoned for over 15 years. There used to be boutique shops, gym and cafe. I remember it in its heyday and is sad to now see it all abandoned and being knocked down. Hopefully some of it can be kept and redeveloped as with the other parts of the town.

Here is a last shot of the viaduct with the sun starting to set.

History walk around town

On Saturday, I organised a guided tour around Stockport starting from Stockport railway station and finishing at the river Mersey behind the precinct with the British History, Social Group on Meetup https://meetu.ps/c/23GkP/b3nJ4/aCheck

Town hall
War Memorial Art Gallery
Remains of four Corinthian columns from Mount Tabor chapel built in 1868 which once stood on the corner of Edwards street and Wellington Road South
Cockleshell Hero memorial statue
Fred Perry House
Stopford House
The back of St. Mary’s church
Arden Arms pub
Elizabeth Raffald: Blue plaque
Part of the River Mersey not covered over by the precinct
The members of the British History Social Group (Meetup) father outside the railway station

March photo walk

I recently took some photographs of the exterior of Stockport College in anticipation of the redevelopment of the site. There is currently a lot of building work taking place in town such as the soon-to-be build Stockport Bus Interchange on the existing site next to the railway viaduct. I hope to use some of these images as inspiration for future prints.

Railings
Covered walkway
College building.
College building.
College building
Construction site of Stockport bus exchange.
Stockport college from the A6 road and the last image shows the site of the new bus exchange.

Visit to Bury Art Museum and new etching

Last Saturday at the printmaking workshop, I started a new etching plate which is the first for 2022. The new plate once completed will depict the White Lion public house which has now been turned into swanky apartments in the centre of town. The plate is slightly larger than the normal 18 x 12 cms I usually create etching prints from. I have gone for a larger printing plate so I can add more detail. Below is a photo of the plate which has a coating of hard wax to protect the plate when it has its first dip in the acid bath early next month. The first acid bath lasts about 15 minutes which allows the outline of the drawing to be defined more strongly on the plate.

White Lion etching plate (17 x 26.5 cms)

Yesterday, I visited Bury Art Museum to swap a small number of etchings for the shop that is based on the first floor. One of the prints I submitted was of the cage at Lyme Park.

“The Cage at Lyme Park” Etching Aquatint (c) Neil Robinson

The museum has a collection of paintings by JMW Turner. One of which is this work I saw in the main gallery (see below)

Calais Sands at Low Water: Poissards Collecting Bait by Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (Bury Art Museum collection)

Map of Stockport

Over the weekend, I took part in a large drypoint print workshop with a small group of artist/printmakers.

My objective was to create a large map in drypoint depicting landmarks of Stockport. I had never printed anything larger than about a3 size in print form before and my last large print was a drypoint of the viaduct using a metal plate. This time around, the printing plate would be flexible plastic sheeting which was 75 cm x 55 cm in size.

I decided on the idea of a map sometime ago and knowing that a 2-day large printmaking workshop was going ahead, I ensured I booked a place as soon as I got the notice.

I began by prepping the map by creating a printed template in reverse that I had sourced a day before the workshop. I used a combination of Photoshop Elements and PowerPoint to tile the large map and print off sections onto manageable a4 paper prints so I could tape them together afterwards.

On Saturday, day 1 of the workshop, I added reversed text and images of landmarks which I etched into the plate using etching tools from roulettes to diamond point tools to get different textures and patterns.

Printing plate 75 x 55 cms

I placed the template I had created underneath the plastic printing plate while I etched the design onto the plastic.

The process took me approximately 9 hours to prepare the plate (1.5 days). I had to carefully placed where all the text and images of the landmarks would go.

Finally, on day 2, I could ink up and print my plate with the assistant of my friend Alan Birch, using a large etching press which we had hired out for the day from an artist studio down the road in Waterfoot, Rossendale called ‘Valley Studios’ only a few minutes travel from Prospect Studios.

I created an artist proof print (AP) using cartridge paper and then managed to print off my first good print on Fabriano paper.

I reckon there are another seven prints I could produce from the plate before it wears out.

The process was long and challenging but the results were very pleasing indeed and well worth the time taken.

Here are some photos taken of the printed map.

Map of Stockport (Proof drypoint on cartridge paper)
Map of Stockport (close-up)
Map of Stockport (close-up)
Map of Stockport (close-up of title)

Pyramid print

‘The Pyramid’

This is an etching aquatint print I created early on in the project which I seem to have not shared before in this blog.

I used a combination of printing inks with black ink printed first, then leaving the remaining black ink on the plate, I then inked up blue ink and printed again to get the desired effect of deep dark shadows and lines with the black ink and light highlighted areas with blue ink.