Have you tried being a tourist in your home city?

My friend Sandie has been staying with me so she could do the workshop I talked about yesterday.

I was born in Birmingham and although I don't live there now I know the city centre quite well and it's interesting to go round it with another photographer.   There are a lot of photos in this post showing some of the things we spotted starting with Wednesday's walk round.

Outside the Jewellery Quarter Station

Key Hill Cemetery in the Jewellery Quarter

Some odd bits in the pavements (sidewalks for my US readers!)

We walked alongside the canal

We walked through the ICC (conference centre) and saw this on the wall.

We walked through Victoria Square and saw the garden that's been put in place instead of the fountain.  The large sculpture which when it was in the fountain was known locally as the 'Floozie in the Jacuzzi'.  Doesn't quite match a garden, does it?

There was this garden in the square commemorating World War 1.

And then on to the Cathedral and the Birmingham Parks entry to the Chelsea Flower Show in May where they won a Gold Medal.

And then off to the Bullring to see the bull.

Sandie really liked the Selfridges building.  I'm not very fond of it and it amazes me that it has won architectural awards.

This is a tree sculpture by St. Martin's-in-the-Bullring church.

We both liked this reflection in the windows.

On Thursday we walked in different places and looked at the reflections in windows.

I was quite taken with this bike.

I loved the shapes in this arcade.

I was fascinated to find a wildflower meadow in the middle of the road over the road tunnel.

Later we walked back alongside the canal to Brindleyplace which isn't at all where I thought it was or how I thought it would be.  I thought it was right alongside the canal but it wasn't and was a sheltered plaza.

We saw these clocks in an office building.

We went to the top of The Cube and saw this view of the canal.

Outside The Mailbox we found this giant table lamp!

And then we walked past the new buildings of New Street Station with the patterns you can see on the shiny cladding.

There are some amazing buildings in the centre of Birmingham which I haven't featured in this post.

One of the reasons we were walking round was because around Birmingham this summer we have a collection of giant owls.  Come back tomorrow to see all the ones we found.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Artists' Books Workshop

I have spent the last three days at a workshop on making an Artist's Book.   There was the possibility of monoprinting as well.

Starting at the end of the 3 days here are some of the things I made.   Those pictured are finished books but I also have some sample patterns for books.

I tried out various things and then settled on making this book.   It started off being a black and white book but then gave up on the black!

I started by folding and accordian style spine and cutting out folded shapes.

There was a large printing press which was a bit like an overblown Cuttlebug or Big Shot.  So I experimented with putting damped paper through it with a stencil laid on it.  It's quite difficult to see the embossing but here it is:

The embossing shows up better on this because as you know I don't clean my stencils and the damp paper refreshed the spray ink that was left on the stencil.  So the paper became slightly pink.

Then I cut out some of the shapes using a scalpel.

I stitched the folded pages into the concertina spine.  There's lots of photos because I rather like the sculptural effect with the book and the shadows.

I doubt the book will ever have anything written in it but it was fun to make.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice