Stockport College's new BSc Agriculture course

Speaking of the allotment, we spent a couple of hours there the other week. Really peaceful considering it's in south Reddish, just the railway line to keep us company. They've got a nice nature reserve with ponds harbouring frogs and, bizarrely, an upside - down pedalo, refugee from forced labour on some boating lake. Even after this cold spring it's a cheery place, with gaily painted sheds and hardy vegetables shoving cautious heads over the parapet.

 

We've got to pitch some posters to the Growing Together people tomorrow. Post them when I've done them.

You can't do this on a mac...

A few weeks back my eyes were opened to a wondrous way of creating images. Linocut!
I knew so little about it that I was surprised to find it was based on real lino, the stuff you find on manky kitchen floors. You cut into it with special gouges - it's really tactile, you feel like you're doing proper work. I'm a bit obsessed with black & white images, and magpies, so this is what I did first off.


 

Anyway, cut to today and the Allotment brief. I thought some veg - related linocuts wouldn't go amiss, so I photocopied half a red cabbage...
 

Hammer and Sickle

The fruit label brief got me a bit obsessed with communist imagery - gotta be
some cuban bananas, eh? - so in a fit of nostalgia I sent off for an official Communist Party badge.

 

Then I found out that it was designed by Eric Gill for the Daily Worker newspaper, now called the Morning Star. Well, after a hard day's perversion, why not relax by rebranding the logo of a system responsible for the deaths of millions?

The Smoke

Going to London makes you realise just how small central Manchester is, and how little interesting stuff we have. Round every corner there's something else to look at and admire. History pours out of the walls.

                                         
This is where the news comes from - the headquarters of The Times. A good insight into working for a big paper.
                                                        
Tate Modern. I expected great things of the turbine hall, but there was nothing in it.

 The view from the balcony. Magnificent. Saw one of the resident peregrines too.
Outside No. 10. That bloke with the placards that you always see walking behind (insert name of lying sack of shit politician here) is keeping his options open.

Protesters outside the Houses of Parliament. Someone else getting shafted. Still, as long as George Osborne can find another billion for tax cuts for bankers, all's well with the world, eh? - No plebs allowed this side!
        the view from the waterbus between Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Well worth a fiver.







More dazzle paint!

I was laid low by backache by this time, so had to bail out the next morning. This meant that I missed the linotype workshop, which I was looking forward to. Bummer. Still, good trip.