A very productive afternoon

Saturday morning starting with a very realistic to do list - nothing too ambitious.

Saturday evening - and hardly anything is ticked off!  Yet I don't feel that I have sat around all day.  One item on the list is the apple jelly.  A couple of weeks ago I picked a lovely crop of apples on a dog walk.  It turns out that they are the sort of apple that retains its shape when cooked!  And I really mean that - would be brilliant for "tarte tartin" but utterly useless for turning into a mush.  Consequently the juice is taking forever to strain through the muslin bag.  

The broken bathroom light chain and the broken shower door remain unfixed - so tomorrow I feel a trip to B&Q coming on.

But all is not lost.  On the Bletchley Park sketch book front things have progressed and I am moving towards the final piece (and bearing in mind the time scale I am working to, that's a good thing!)

First of all I made a new batch of home made stamps -this time with foam shapes (on the right hand side of this photograph) and self adhesive foam cut to represent the Gilbert Scott classic telephone box. 

Here is one of the print blocks used on a page in the sketch book.  I like the squares within the circle ( see earlier photo of the amazing early computer at Bletchley Park) 

I have also been playing with those lovely fluid metallic pens again.  I love the effect close up, but the picture below shows how the digital camera is such a friend to the artist - they just do not work in this photo.  (But I do like the effect of the writing in the back ground.  This is taken from letters home written during WWII).

I have also been playing about with discarded packaging - here using wrapper for fresh coffee.  Although it does not work here, because the silver of the pen is lost against the 'busy' background,  I like the effect and think that this material will find a place in the final piece.

But this I really love.  This is the rather unpromising print block using the classic Gilbert Scott telephone box as inspiration.  I thought there would be too much 'red' - but I really like the slightly quirky final effect.  Again, definitely one for the final piece.