Ooo, it's so long !

Our giclée printers spend most of their time producing fine art prints or large format photography, but from time to time we have been asked to print off various family trees.

Since our first print of these a few years back, our customer has been feverishly researching her family history.  Having tracked down her ancestors far and wide, the print is now 5.7 metres long! 

These are definitely the longest prints we have had to produce.  It does make a pleasant change from art once in a while !

You Won't Miss Us Now !

The trusty van has (finally) had a facelift and nice new shiny set of graphics.  Most of the previous sign-writing was out of date (and hence a pack of lies!) so it was well overdue. 

Jules wanted something that could be seen . . . .  and the new design can definitely be seen!!!!

Give us a wave if you see us about.

It's a Significant Number (for us) . . . .

Last week saw us reach a particular threshold in our business as Mr & Mrs Stanley unwittingly became new customers that meant our total customer accounts had reached a significant number.  We’re shy about numbers so we’re not going to say exactly how many, but it had a good few noughts on it!

We thought we couldn’t let the event go unnoticed so we presented Mr & Mrs Stanley with a rather nice case of wine and a jolly looking plant.  We even decided it would be wrong to charge for the framing of their lovely artist’s technical drawing of an Aston Martin on which Mr Stanley worked before his retirement.  We received a lovely letter of thanks from the Stanleys who you can see in the picture receiving the gifts. 

In case you’re wondering who the third ‘On the Edge’ girl is in the picture, it’s Lauren who joined us on work experience for a week.  Lauren did really well and is herself a very good artist.  I’m sure we’ll see more of her work as her art career progresses.

It's in the Can . . .

Well we had some fun today.  We finally got around to having some professional photographs taken of our workshops.  We need some pictures for our new website (yes, we are eventually going to update the website!) and no matter how good your camera is, and how well you know Photoshop (I use it every day), there is no substitute for a professional photographer with genuine creative skills. 

We’ve worked with Clipston based photographer Rob Leveritt for quite a while now, so he got the dodgy brief of trying to take interesting shots of picture framing in progress!  He didn’t even flinch when I asked for some shots to represent our laminating and dry mounting service!!!  Exciting stuff indeed!

The main thing we learnt is that the only time you should wear white shirts & blouses whilst picture framing is for a photo shoot - it’s a grubby business!

So the make-up has been packed away, the models have retired to their Winnebago and the shots are ‘in the can’.  We await the result with great interest.

Have a look at Rob’s web site, www.robertleverittphotography.com  he has a really unique flair for getting really natural portrait photography - so different from those factory-line portrait studios.

Summer's Coming . . . ?

I’ve just noticed that April’s blog I titled as “Winter’s Gone”.  Well that was premature wasn’t it!  But in case you need something positive to cling to, the great summer of 1976 didn’t start until June 22^nd, apparently, and it rained for the early weeks.  We can but hope!

Jubilee week has been and gone and we decided that we must be the only business that didn’t manage to apply even the most tenuous link between our products and the Queen’s big week (surely a red white and blue frame would look rubbish!) .  It became quite amusing seeing what other businesses managed to promote as being to “celebrate the jubilee”.

We are now fully in the flow of exhibition season again.  The deadlines are getting shorter, the feeling of panic is rising amongst some artists (and us) and some of the exhibition rules on sizes, finishes and hangings appear to need a degree in deciphering!  Happy days!

Winter's Gone

Well here we are in spring again.  It’s been nice to have the workshop doors open again and to wear a few less layers.

Jess mastering 'The Beast'!

Every time we think we’ve got the workshop sorted we found ourselves having change it all around again (with lots of upheaval ).  The latest addition to the workshop is a very nice pneumatic twin mitre saw  . . . . I know you’re impressed !  We decided to upgrade to this rather large piece of equipment as it gives a far better cut allowing us to get an even nicer finish on the frame corners.  It also lets us offer some frames that we couldn’t cut before, either due to size or the type of material.

My simple assumption that we could just buy a mitre saw were, as ever, naïve (my learning curve continues!) I soon found out we had to buy and fit an enormous compressor to drive it and a complex (and noisy) dust extraction system.  I think any illusions about picture framing being a cute traditional craft are rapidly disappearing !

Eater is a few days away, so I hope you all enjoy the break. 

Prizes, prizes . . . . .

For a few years now we’ve been pleased to put up a prize for Joules Clothing’s big fundraising day for Children in Need.  This year’s winner was the lovely Marie-Claire, shown collecting her prize of a large canvas print we’d produced from one of her own photos. Congratulations Marie-Claire.