News of the gallery and framing talk

On the 5 December at 10am
All of the people who came in were very nice and our friends in Selkirk brought cards and wine and our upstairs neighbours very kindly brought us flowers which are now blossoming in the shop.

Thank you all!

Tatch came yesterday to discuss hand painted signs for the gallery - we're going to have chocolate brown - really '20s, and Della Robbia typeface painting. He's going to do them just before Christmas.

4pm, with a dark blue sky and the courthouse clock looking like the full moon.

I thought I'd just tell you how we make cyanotypes because many people ask us.
First, pick a sunny morning and choose what you're going to lay on the paper.
Then pick your watercolour paper, or printing paper, it has to be porous enough to accept the fluid yet dense enough so that it holds it evenly.
We draw the curtains, shut every door to prepare the paper because the fluid is light sensitive.
We brush evenly the piece of paper then hold it in a shoebox for half an hour until it is dry.
And then we lay it on a piece of board with a piece of glass over it then clamp it.
Then put it outside for anything between half an hour and three hours When it is the right shade of blue we take it out of its casing and take off the plant or negative and put it into a developing tray and wash it very gently.

The Christmas lights went up today, for lighting up next Saturday - they make Selkirk look tip top for Christmas.

It may seem a boring topic; but no!
These plug holes are what powers the till, the card machine and the internet, so we'll take care of Graeme Leggett's work.

Dave Jackson is our joiner and he's helping Javier make a display case to of the carcase of the plan chest, which had no top when we bought it. So we bought a fine oak plank, some beech handles and some work ...

We bought a carcase of a plan chest, and Javier and Dave Jackson are going to make it into a display chest with an oak plank from Rembrandts.

Della Robbia is a typeface designed by Thomas Maitland Cleland in 1902 It was inspired by 15th Century Florentine carved letters and named after Luca Della Robbia, a Florentine sculptor.

It's an open easy to read friendly typeface that reminds both of us of 1920s adverts. The colours reminds us of the 1920s; a pinky grey and a chocolate brown.

I filled up three or four A5 books with ideas for logos - this has been the most difficult job I've had, designing for our own business...

eventually we found a simple device that shows a burn and a house beside it/a 'b'.

And we wanted our gallery to be a place where well made things had a home - we thought of the '20s with proper stout well made things, so we chose Della Robbia as our typeface - oh I'll tell you about that in my next post.

We've asked Bernie to make us a hanging sign, and we couldn't really explain it to him in technical language so he quickly whipped out a bit of chalk and drew up a design on the pavement!

In Selkirk there is a two hundred year old smithy, and one of the blacksmiths, Bernie, from T R Keddies made us this new gate to fit on the door when we weren't there. It is made of mild steel, coated in aluminium and very impressive.

Javier painted the front door in Little Greenes paint in 'Mirage II' - it's a sort of mushroomy colour, pale enough to look smart but dark enough to hide scuffs!

We appear in the website, 'exploreselkirk', thanks to Bryan Hoggan who contacted us.
We are joining three brave shops opening in this grim year.

One wall had original wooden painted panelling; we wanted to copy it on the other wall.
So Javier did that while I designed some cards showing my mother's work.

We've painted over the very nice golden green in the back room to a slightly more sober pebble colour for Javier's dark room.
And we're struggling to take up the dark Lino and underlying chipboard, it's so well made - lots of glue, screws and sealer.
We want to take it back to the original wide boards - we'll see if we can do it.

We have bought three pots of paint, (extravagantly), gray, caramel and mushroom to paint the back wall - we've decided on the mushroom.
And T R Keddie is making us a super new grill to put on the door when we aren't in the shop.

We thought some plants might be nice in the window, so we're bringing white cyclamen tomorrow.

We raced to Gala yesterday to get paint before our electrician came, Graeme Legge, who changed the lights; it makes a lot of difference; now to get Japanese paper shades.

Opening a framing shop and a gallery - first thing to do is paint - and spend long hours on the mobile listening to canned music, organising everything.
Everybody's been very kind to us though.

The first paint was too dark ...